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I LIBRARY OF (MGllESS. J 

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J UNITED STATES OF AMBIMCA.J 



JSnCODEMUS WITH JESUS; 



OB 



LIGHT AND LIFE 

FOR THE DARK AND DEAD WORLD. 



y.ry^jJf 



Rev. J. Ml^pr'OTTS. 



''Christ, my all! 
My theme ! my inspiration ! and my crown ! 
My strength in age f my rise in low estate ! 
My soul's ambition, pleasure, wealth ! my world ! 
My light in darkness ! and my life in death V^ 



n 




PHILADELPHIA: 

JAMES S. CL AXTON, 

SUCCESSOR TO WM. S. & ALFRED MARTIEN, 

1214 CHESTKUT STEEET. 
1867. 



J5SS50O 



Sntered) according to Act of Congress; in the year 1866, 

By J. M. P. OTTS, 

In the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the 

Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



t CONTENTS. 
OJ 

PAGE 

Preface y 

CHAPTER I. 
The Night Interview 13 

CHAPTER II. 
The Divine Teacher 27 

CHAPTER III. 
The Divine Life-Restorer 43 

CHAPTER IV. 
NicoDEMTJs's Unbelief and Ridicule 52 

CHAPTER V. 
The Nature of Regeneration 62 

CHAPTER VI. 
Man's State by Nature 73 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Necessity of Regeneration 81 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Mystery of the New Birth 92 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Rationalism op Nicodemus 101 

CHAPTER X. 
NicoDEMUs's Ignorance Reproved 110 

CHAPTER XI. 
NicoDEMus's Unbelief Reproved 116 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII. PAGE 
The Earthly and Heavenly Things 125 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Incarnation 130 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Crucifixion 137 

CHAPTER XV. 
Life by Faith in Christ Crucified 147 

CHAPTER XVI. 
God's Wonderful Love for the "World 156 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Design of Christ's Mission to Earth 170 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Justification by Faith 178 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Unbeliever Already Condemned 184 

CHAPTER XX. 
Unbelief Natural to Man 191 

CHAPTER XXL 
Evil-doers Love Darkness 198 

CHAPTER XXIL 
The Doers of the Truth Love the Light 205 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
The Impression made on Nicodemus's Mind 215 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
The Conclusion 223 



PREFACE. 



In sending this little and unpretending 
volume to the public, we are actuated by a 
desire to do good and to preach the gospel 
of Jesus to a larger number of persons than 
that which assembles before us every Sab- 
bath. The circumstances in which it had its 
origin, encourage us to hope that good may 
be done by its publication. The idea of 
writing a little work on the conversation of 
our Lord with Nicodemus was suggested by 
a large and interesting Bible-class, which 
the author instructs every Sabbath evening. 
When we came to study this portion of the 
sacred Scriptures, both the class and the in- 

(9) 



10 PREFACE. 

structor became unusually interested in it, 
and we lingered long on these precious words 
of Jesus. We found that they possessed a 
richness of thought, of which we had not 
before been fully aware. We did not know, 
until we began to study this passage closely, 
that so much and so important truth was 
compressed and imbedded in so small a com- 
pass. The whole class seemed to think that, 
in this interview between the Divine Founder 
of the gospel and the learned doctor of the 
law, we had sprung an inexhaustible mine of 
Divine truth. It is an epitome of the whole 
gospel. 

As the Bible-class was so much interested 
in these lessons, the author determined to 
deliver the substance of them in sermons 
before his congregation ; and he found that 
his whole congregation became as deeply 
interested with the discourses as the Bible- 
class had been. He then thought that what 



PREFACE. 11 

met with such universal favor among his own 
people would be likely to do good on a larger 
scale. He, therefore, determined to put his 
thoughts on this remarkable conversation in 
the form of a book, and to send them out to 
the public, to preach the gospel in places 
where he could not go. 

The Christian public will find this little 
volume very catholic in its spirit and doc- 
trines. The class, which originally listened 
to it, in oral instructions, is composed of 
Christians of various denominations, none of 
whom ever found the least objection to the 
doctrines or the spirit in which they were con- 
veyed. While the author is very firm in his 
own convictions of Divine truth, and earnest 
in the defence of his peculiar views on pro- 
per occasions, he did not think it advisable 
to introduce any controverted points in a 
little work on the fundamental principles of 
our holy religion. He has not, however, in 



12 PREFACE. 

his desire to please all, shunned to speak 
firmly what he believes to be the mind of 
the Spirit in those words of his inspiration, 
which he has attempted to explain. There 
are ten thousand magnificent points in which 
all Christians agree; and on them we can 
meet and hold sweet fellowship together, 
and agree to differ in peace and love about 
the few points of minor importance, which 
separate us into various denominations. 

The Author. 



NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE NIGHT INTERVIEW. 

'^ There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemns, 
a ruler of the Jews, the same came to Jesus by night/* 
— John iii. 1, 2. 

After the day's toil and fatigue, in preach- 
ing and miracle-working, at the Temple and 
on the streets of Jerusalem, the Saviour had 
retired to his place of temporary abode — 
perhaps it was the house of some kinsman of 
the beloved disciple — to spend the night in 
repose and quiet, to recuperate his exhausted 
physical energies for another day's arduous 
labors of love and mercy among a perishing 
2 



14 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

people, whom he had come to save. We 
must never forget the fact, that our blessed 
Saviour was as truly man as he was really 
God; and in his humanity, like any other 
man, he was susceptible of weariness, and 
needed sleep and rest. But on this occa- 
sion, the night brought no repose to his 
tired body, nor cessation from his willing 
labors; for, when the sable clouds of night 
were hung out from the skies, and had 
enshrouded the earth in gloom and dark- 
ness, and all around were hushed in the 
unconscious embrace of refreshing slumbers, 
one of the rulers of the Jews, of the sect of 
the Pharisees, Nicodemus by name, crept 
through the silence and solitude of darkness 
to the apartment of Jesus, and sought a pri- 
vate interview with him, in order to have 
more fully explained some of the sublime 
and mysterious truths which he had pro- 
claimed in his public discourse on the pre- 
vious day. The Lord did not plead weari- 
ness, as he might have done, and turn the 
inquirer away in his ignorance ; but, with a 
patience and endurance that were inexhaust- 



THE NIGHT INTERVIEW. 15 

ible, because they were divine, he bids the 
ruler to be admitted to his audience, and 
refusing sleep to his eyes and rest from his 
labors, he spends the night in personal and 
instructive conversation with the teacher of 
Israel. This conversation is intensely inter- 
esting, on account of the high character of 
the persons who met, and of the most trans- 
cendent importance, on account of the 
weighty topics discussed. Here was one of 
the best representatives of the old dispensa- 
tion, then just passing away, meeting in pri- 
vate conference with the Divine Founder of 
the new order of things, which was to take 
the place of the old; and in the interview 
Jesus unfolds to Nicodemus, the expounder 
of the law, the fundamental principles of the 
gospel, and of that spiritual kingdom which 
he had come to set up on earth. 

Every word in this conversation is preg- 
nant with some most important truth, and 
some of them have an eternity of meaning 
which the finite mind can never grasp into 
full comprehension. The deep and unutter- 
able sin of fallen humanitj^, the unbounded 



16 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

and inconceivable love of God for a rebel- 
lious worldj the indescribable sufferings of 
Jesus, as the atoning substitute for con- 
demned sinners, the regenerating power of 
the Holy Ghost, and the justifying efficacy 
of the blood of Jesus through faith, all pass 
in rapid but perfectly distinct review in 
this short conversation. The whole scheme 
of redemption, including every essential part 
acted by God and man in it, is condensed 
in marvellous conciseness within the very 
limited compass of twenty-one short verses. 
Heaven and earth meet in it. The adora- 
ble Trinity is revealed, — the Father as 
planning, the Son as executing, and the 
Spirit as applying, redemption to fallen 
man. It discovers what man is by nature, 
and what he must become by grace, before 
he can see God in pea<?e and glory. Never 
was so much and so important truth com- 
pressed in so small a space. It is an epi- 
tome of the whole gospel. It is as precious 
as the diamond, which contains the greatest 
possible amount of wealth in the smallest 
possible compass. Whoever reads and un- 



THE NIGHT INTERVIEW. 17 

derstands this conversation, will know truth 
enoiiojh to save his soul, and will be inexcus- 
able if it is lost. Volumes might be written 
in exposition of it, and still many important 
truths implied in it would be left unex- 
plained. It is like an inexhaustible mine of 
precious ore, from which we may dig for 
ages, and still leave unlimited stores for the 
discovery of future generations. 

This conversation took place at night; 
and there was not only a night of darkness 
on Xicodemus's body, but there was also a 
night of ignorance on his soul. He had 
heard Jesus preach, and seen the wonderful 
miracles which he wrought, and these had 
only opened his mental eyes wide enough to 
discover to him the darkness of his mind, 
and to induce a desire to know more of 
Jesus. He was like the blind man, whose 
eyes Jesus afterwards opened, who at first 
saw men as trees walking. He had some 
glimmerings of the truth, but he did not yet 
see distinctly. He knew that Jesus was a 
teacher sent from God, but he was not yet 
convinced that he was the great Messiah, 
2* 



18 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

the Deliverer and King of Israel. His 
curiosity was excited, and he wished to learn 
more of the truth and of Jesus, and so he 
came to him by night. 

It does not seem that he came to Jesus 
solely on his own individual responsibility, 
but that he was the willing commissioner 
and representative of others, who thought of 
Jesus just as he did; for he says, ''Kabbi, 
tve know that thou art a teacher come from 
God," and Christ replied, ^'Ye receive not 
our testimony.'' Why these plurals, if no 
one was concerned in this conversation but 
Nicodemus? The '''we hnow'' of Nicode- 
mus, and the '^ye receive not" of Jesus, seem 
to us to indicate that Nicodemus stood before 
the Saviour, in this interview, as a represen- 
tative character. We cannot suppose that 
the plural was used for the singular in the way 
of etiquette, or of the rhetoricians, between 
such characters in a private interview, in 
which such weighty topics were discussed. 
No, Nicodemus was there as the representa- 
tive of a class, who thought and believed as 
he did in regard to Jesus, and who had com- 



THE NIGHT INTERVIEW. 19 

missioned and sent him to consult with the 
Lord concerning the nature of his oflSce and 
mission to earth. If Nicodemus was a repre- 
sentative character, whom did he represent? 
Not the common people, as it seems that Dr. 
Lightfoot supposes, for this class did not 
generally confess that Jesus was a Divine 
Teacher, and besides, Nicodemus, as he was 
a ruler, would not be likely to come in their 
name. Nor do we suppose, as some others 
seem to do, that he spoke thus indefinitely 
of certain persons, such as Joseph of Arima- 
thea, who had come to the same conclusion 
with himself, in regard to the work and 
office of Christ. We are inclined to think 
that he came to Jesus as the authorized com- 
missioner of those members of the Sanhedrim 
who were of the sect of the Pharisees. If 
this was not the case, why is the Evangelist 
so particular in stating that Nicodemus was 
of the sect of the Pharisees, and a ruler in 
Israel? It seems to us that John lays a 
peculiar emphasis on this fact, for no other 
purpose than to indicate the class of persons 
whom he represented in this interview with 



20 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

the Saviour. It appears that he represented 
not all the rulers, nor all the Pharisees, but 
only those rulers in Israel who were Phari- 
sees. It is probable that when Christ began 
his public ministry, and suddenly appeared 
in the Temple and drove out those w^ho sold 
doves and oxen, and overturned the tables 
of the money-changers, the whole Sanhedrim 
convened, to consider in what light they 
should recognize Jesus, and what action 
they should take concerning him ; and, per- 
haps, in the full meeting they could arrive 
at no definite determination, and, after the 
adjournment of the Sanhedrim, those rulers, 
who were of the sect of the Pharisees, held 
what in modern times is called a caucus, to 
determine what course they should pursue in 
the matter. In this meeting they found 
themselves convinced, from his miracles, 
that Jesus was a teacher sent from God, but 
they were not prepared to receive him as 
the promised Messiah. They, therefore, 
commissioned and sent Nicodemus, one of 
their number, to consult with Jesus, in order 
to discover something more definite of his 



THE NIGHT INTERVIEW. 21 

claims and character. If this supposition of 
the cause and design of Nicodemus's visit is 
correct, it will throw a great deal of light on 
the future conduct of the Pharisaic rulers 
towards Christ. Nicodemus's words express 
not only his own opinion, but also the true 
conviction of all those rulers in whose name 
he spoke, and show that they were convinced 
that Jesus was, at least, a prophet — a teacher 
sent from God. 

Then all their cruel persecutions of our 
Saviour were against the light of their minds 
and the dictates of their consciences, and 
sprung from the diabolical malice of their 
hearts. They rejected Christ because he 
did not come in accordance with their selfish 
expectations and proud desires. They know- 
ingly despised the Lord of glory, and wit- 
tingly instigated the Romans to crucify him, 
because he did not come as a glorious war- 
rior, and in the pomp and exaltation of an 
earthly king, to deliver them from the 
Roman domination. This is the great 
aggravation of their cruel persecutions and 
hellish murder of the Prince of light and 



22 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

life. They were hurried on, in this infernal 
work, by bitter malice and worldly disap- 
pointment at his humble and unobtrusive 
character. They would not have a Saviour 
so pure and self-sacrificing, and who required 
such purity and self-sacrifice in his followers. 
If this interpretation of the reason and 
design of Nicodemus's visit to Christ is cor- 
rect, it may be asked, why did he come at 
night? The common opinion, that he came 
under cover of darkness for the purpose 
of concealment, cannot be correct. If the 
Pharisean rulers sent him, he would not be 
in any danger of being regarded by them as 
having become a disciple of Jesus for going, 
nor could he have feared that they would 
cast him out of the synagogue for executing 
their own mission. It could not, therefore, 
have been any fear of the Pharisaic rulers 
that induced him to choose the night for the 
time of his visit. If it was fear that made 
him go at night, it was the fear of the com- 
mon people, and not of the rulers. The 
Pharisees w^ere exceedingly anxious to be 
popular with the common people, and there- 



THE NIGHT INTERVIEW. 23 

fore they would not be likely to do anything 
that would put them in bad odor with that 
class of persons, and to avoid this they 
might have dispatched Nicodemus under the 
cover of the secrecy of night. But it is not 
necessary at all, to suppose that it was 
a desire to keep the matter private that led 
them to choose the night for this interview. 
Another reason may be assigned, which 
seems to us equally probable. Christ was 
engaged all the day long in his public labors, 
so that there was no opportunity for pro- 
tracted and private conversation with him in 
the daytime; and this fact is a suflScient 
reason why the night should have been 
selected as the most suitable time for this 
conference. We think, however, that both 
these reasons might have had their influence 
in causing the night to be chosen as the 
time for it. The Pharisees might have de- 
sired that the fact of their sending a messen- 
ger to Jesus should be kept secret from the 
common people and the Sadducean rulers, 
and at the same time have wished that their 
commissioner should go at such a season, 



24 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

when he would have ample time to discuss, 
thoroughly, the points on which they sought 
information. Both these reasons would 
point to the night as the most convenient 
and proper time. 

Who was this Nicodemus, that thus talked 
with Jesus ? Very little more is said of him 
in the Scriptures, save what is made known 
of him in this conversation, and we are not 
certain that his name is mentioned at all in 
secular history. We have, however, in the 
Talmud, a Nicodemus ben Gorion, who is 
said to have been a disciple of Jesus; but he 
is found living at the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem. This certainly might have been, and 
that Nicodemus be the same that is men- 
tioned here. This Nicodemus ben Gorion 
was said to have been so very rich that he 
could hafe supported all the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem for ten days. It is very possible 
that this was the Nicodemus who came to 
Jesus by night; but it is, by no means, cer- 
tain. Nicodemus is mentioned only twice 
again in the Scriptures; once, as defending 
Jesus in the Sanhedrim, of which he was a 



THE NIGHT INTERVIEW. 25 

member, (John vii. 51,) and again as assist- 
ing Joseph of Arimathea in the burial of the 
crucified Saviour. He was a Pharisee by 
sect, a teacher of the law, and a ruler of the 
Jews. 

Here, then, is a self-righteous Pharisee, a 
worldly wise expounder of the law, and a 
proud ruler in Israel, in private conversation 
with the lowly Jesus of Nazareth, who is the 
Divine expounder of the spiritual and true 
meaning of the law, and the King of kings 
and Lord of lords. And how superior in 
wisdom and power does the meek Jesus 
appear over the learned and mighty of earth. 
At every turn in the conversation Nicodemus 
is confounded and amazed at his own igno- 
rance, and astonished and awed at the divine 
wisdom of Him who ''spake as man never 
spake." Let us quietly, and in becoming 
humility, take our seats at the feet of the 
beloved disciple, who, in all probability, 
heard this conversation, and learn from him 
what Nicodemus said, and what Jesus an- 
swered; and while we listen, we will wonder 
at the ignorance and sin of man, and praise, 
3 



26 NICODE.AIUS WITH JESUS. 

in adoring amazement, the wisdom and grace 
of God, which schemed and executed a plan 
of redemption for the fallen race of human- 
ity. We will find that the world is dark in 
ignorance and dead in sin, but that Christ is 
the Light and Life for the dark and dead 
world. 



THE DIVINE TEACHER. 27 



CHAPTEE IT. 

THE divi:n^e teacher. 

'^ Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God ; 
for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, ex- 
cept God be with him. — John iii. 2. 

We suppose, for reasons already assigned, 
that Nicodemus came to the Saviour and 
sought this private interview with him, as 
the commissioner and representative of the 
Pharisaic members of the Sanhedrim, and 
that it was on their authority, and by their 
direction, that he spoke this opening sen- 
tence; and these words must, therefore, be 
regarded, as not only expressing his own 
individual opinion in regard to the person 
and office of Jesus, but as also expressing 
the true conviction of the party which he 
represented. We are not to suppose that 
Nicodemus was any better informed or more 
enlightened, when he came to the Lord, than 



28 NICOBEMUS WITH JESUS. 

those who sent' him; and as to the impres- 
sion made on his mind by the words of Jesus 
and their influence on his future conduct, we 
will inquire in another chapter. 

The belief that Jesus was a teacher come 
from God, did not exist in the mind of these 
rulers as a mere conjecture, but they had 
arrived at an assured conviction, as to who 
and what Jesus was. Rabbi, we know that 
thou art a teacher come from God. They 
do not seem to entertain the least doubt 
about the matter. They had such irrefraga- 
ble evidence that he was a divinely commis- 
sioned and authorized teacher, that there 
was no room in their minds for even a suspi- 
cion that he was an impostor. And in the 
light of this fact, we must view all their 
future conduct towards him. They rejected 
and persecuted him even unto the bitter 
death of the cross, knowing that he was a 
teacher sent from God. They might not 
have known that he was the promised Mes- 
siah, but they knew that he was not an im- 
postor, and that he was at least a prophet of 
the living God; and, when they instigated 



THE DIVINE TEACHER. 29 

the Romans to nail him to the cross, they 
knew that they were putting to death a mes- 
senger from heaven. And the great aggra- 
vation of this awful crime is found in the 
fact, that it was perpetrated against the 
honest convictions of their minds. His 
crucifixion sprung from the pure malice of 
their hearts; and the greatest of all crimes, 
is that which is perpetrated by an enlight- 
ened mind through the promptings of a 
malicious heart. The wickedness of the 
murder of the Prince of light and life by the 
cruelty of the Jewish rulers, who knew that 
he was a teacher sent from God, is unparal- 
leled in the annals of crime. 

Not only did they assert most positively, 
that they knew that Jesus was a divine 
teacher — an instructor from heaven and a 
messenger from God, — but they also assigned 
the reason, which forced them to this conclu- 
sion. "Rabbi, we know that thou art a 
teacher come from God: for no man can do 
these miracles that thou doest except God be 
with him.'' They had seen him heal the 
sick, cast out devils, cleanse the temple, and 
3* 



30 NICODEMUS AVITH JESUS. 

probably some of their number were present 
at the marriage feast of Cana in Galilee, and 
had seen him change water into wine; and, 
perhaps also, he had exhibited, in their 
presence, many wonderful signs of his 
miraculous power, which are not recorded 
in the Gospels. They were perfectly con- 
vinced that the wonders he peformed were 
genuine miracles, because they were things 
which could not be accomplished by natural 
means or magical arts. Though they were 
unacquainted with the spirit of the law, 
they well understood its letter, and knew 
the might and authority of the miracle. 
They knew what it proved. They knew 
that the miracle incontestably evinced that 
the performer was either God himself, or 
the approved and honored servant of God; 
and, as they were perfectly convinced that 
Jesus did perform real miracles, they were 
constrained to admit, the lowest possible 
conclusion to which his miracles inevitably 
drove them, that Jesus was a teacher come 
from God. 

Let us see how the miracle would logically 



THE DIVINE TEACHER. 31 

conduct them to this conclusion. To see 
this we must first inquire, what is a miracle? 
The miracle is an event which demonstrates 
the presence and action of a power above the 
established constitution and laws of nature, 
because it implies the momentary suspensioD, 
or the counteraction of the operation of some 
known law, or because it is performed by 
means entirely outside of all laws of nature. 
In other words, the miracle is the immediate 
product of the Omnipotent fiat, working 
above, and apart from, all the established 
laws and secondary agents and causes of 
nature. The difference between the real 
miracle and the mere wonder, lies in the fact 
that the former is a product of a power 
above nature's laws, and the latter is the 
product of a skilful and ingenious combina- 
tion of natural laws, modifying the opera- 
tions of each other and producing a result, 
which amazes those who do not understand 
the combination that effects it. The laws of 
nature may be brought to bear one upon 
another so as to produce an effect, which is 
the joint product of several laws, and the 



32 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

efifect, thus produced, would be marvellous 
and incomprehensible in the eyes of all be- 
holders, who do not understand the ingeni- 
ous contrivance by which it was accom- 
plished. This event would not be a miracle, 
because it is nothing more than the product 
of the established laws of nature ingeniously 
modifying the operations of each other. It 
is a prodigy, but not a miracle. In this 
way, cunning impostors may deceive the 
ignorant, and palm off on them their lying 
wonders for real miracles. But, when a 
known law is visibly suspended, or its known 
operation perceptibly counteracted, or when 
something is done which is clearly above all 
laws of nature, then the event is a real 
miracle, and is felt and acknowledged to be 
such by all beholders. The miracle belongs 
to the category of creation, and is the per- 
ceived manifestation of the Divine power, 
who made the world and established the laws 
of nature by the omnipotent fiat of his will, 
and who, by the volition of his almighty will 
can suspend, counteract, or work above these 
laws. Such were the miracles of Jesus. 



THE DIVINE TEACHER. 33 

From the very nature of the miracle, it will 
follow that none but God can work miracles. 
The miracle is an event contrary to, above, 
or apart from, the laws of nature; and the 
laws of nature are the established constitu- 
tions of God's will, w^hich condition the being 
and limit the powers of all his creatures. It 
is absurd to suppose that any creature, no 
matter if he be the tallest archangel in 
heaven, could suspend God's will, or work 
above it; and this absurdity is implied in 
the supposition, that a creature could work 
a miracle, for, as we have seen, the miracle 
is an event in suspension of, or above the 
laws of nature, which are nothing but the 
expressions of the will of God made perma- 
nent in the constitution of matter and spirit. 
And besides, the miracle is the immediate 
product of omnipotent energy, and cannot 
therefore be the work of a finite being. God 
cannot delegate his omnipotent power to 
any of his creatures; for, the moment a 
creature becomes endowed with it, he will 
be omnipotent and equal in power to God. 
Such a supposition would give us two In- 



34 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

jBnities, which is an absurdity, and an im- 
possibility; and, moreover, if a creature 
could be endowed with infinite power, it 
would then be at his choice, whether he 
would ever lay aside that power or not. 
All miracles are, therefore, the immediate 
and direct works of the Omnipotent Jehovah, 
who made and established the laws of nature, 
and who can suspend, counteract, or work 
above them, when, where, and how he 
pleases. 

But did not the prophets and apostles 
work miracles? No. But God at their call 
performed miracles, in attestation of the 
truth of the doctrines, which they taught at 
his bidding. They were only inspired men, 
and in no other sense were they endowed 
with miraculous power. They were inspired 
to know what to teach, and to know when 
and how God would exhibit his omnipotent 
power in attestation of the truth of their 
teachings. And in exact accordance with 
this fact, they did not profess to perform 
miracles in their own strength, but merely 
declared that such and such miracles would be 



THE DIVINE TEACHER. 35 

performed in the name and power of the Lord, 
as a sign and proof of their Divine mission 
and the truth of their doctrines. No miracu- 
lous power was delegated to them, or claimed 
by them. They were prophets and nothing 
more. They had their name from the two 
Greek words, Tzpo and (prj[jii^ which mean to 
speak for another, and which designate a 
spokesman or interpreter for God. They 
declared the thoughts of God, as they were 
revealed to them, and made known, as they 
were taught by the inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost, when, where, and how, God would 
manifest his power in attestation of his own 
thoughts as spoken through their mouths. 

It can now be easily seen, how the miracle 
demonstrates the divine mission of the pro- 
phets and apostles, and of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. The miracle proves that he, at 
whose word the miracle is performed, is 
either God himself, or the friend of God. 
God alone can perform miracles, and he 
would not prostitute his omnipotent power 
in attestation of the lies of an impostor. 
The miracle, therefore, presents God as a 



36 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

witness, testifying in favor of the claims of 
hira, at whose call the miracle is done. A 
person appears on earth, and claims to be 
sent from God as his prophet, and professes 
to know the thoughts of the Divine mind, 
and to reveal his will to man, and he gives 
out, that God will perform such a miracle in 
attestation of the truth of his claims and pro- 
fessions. The miracle is performed just as 
the man said it would be, and, thereby, God 
himself is presented as a voucher for all the 
claims of the man. The miracle sets God 
before the world as a witness to the truth of 
what the man claims to be and to teach. 
The exhibition of God's omnipotent power, 
through the man, is incontestable evidence 
that He has communicated his thoughts to 
him. God neither could, nor would, work a 
a miracle at the call of an impostor, nor in 
the support of his lies. The idea of such a 
thing is horrible and blasphemous, for it is 
to suppose that God could or would lend his 
omnipotence to the support of imposition 
and falsehood. 

We now see how his miracles, by the irre- 



THE DIVINE TEACHER* 37 

sistlble force of inflexible logic, drove Nico- 
demus and the other Pharisaic rulers to the 
conclusion, that Jesus was at least a teacher 
sent from God: for no man could do the 
miracles which he did, unless God were with 
him. Their views of Jesus were correct as 
far as they went, but the difficulty was, they 
stopped short of the whole truth. They did 
not pursue the argument from the miracles 
of Jesus to the legitimate conclusion to 
which it ought to have conducted. They 
were compelled to acknowledge Jesus as a 
teacher sent from God, but they were not 
prepared to receive him as the Messiah. 
They were ready to recognize him as a pro- 
phet, like Moses or Isaiah, but they were 
not prepared to give to him a higher title and 
a more exalted name, and to receive him 
with homage as the Son of God incarnated — 
the long expected Messiah, and the desire of 
all nations. But if they had but pursued 
the argument, drawn from his miracles, they 
would have found that they as conclusively 
established his Messiahship, as they proved 
him to be a teacher sent from God. 
4 



38 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

Let us see how this would have been the 
case. His miracles were of such a nature 
that they established the fact, beyond a 
doubt, that Giod was with him; and Jesus 
explicitly claimed to be the Christ, and 
wrought his miracles in attestation of that 
claim. Now he either wrought his miracles 
by virtue of inherent and personal omnipo- 
tent power, and thus proved himself to be 
God, or God stepped in, and performed the 
miracles at his call, and thus became a 
voucher for the truth of his claims. In 
whatever light you please to view the 
miracles of Jesus, they prove him to be the 
true Messiah. He was not only a divinely 
authorized teacher sent from heaven, but 
was also a divine person. He claimed to be 
divine, and his miracles demonstrated his 
Divinity, for it is impossible to suppose that 
they could have been wrought in attestation 
of a false claim. This was just the point at 
which Nicodemus and his sympathizers failed. 
They were convinced, from his unmistakable 
miracles, that he was a teacher sent from 
God, but they failed to prosecute the argu- 



THE DIVINE TEACHER. 39 

ment to its legitimate conclusion, and to see 
that he was the true Messiah. Their judg- 
ment of Jesus was erroneous, only by reason 
of its deficiency. They were right in re- 
garding him as a teacher sent from God, for 
he is the great Teacher of this sin-darkened 
world; but they were wrong in failing to 
recognize in him the Messianic teacher of 
the human race. He is the Truth incar- 
nated, and teaching itself, and not a mere 
teacher of the truth. 

Nicodemus, in his confession, unconscious- 
ly gave utterance to a truth of far more 
transcendent significance than he dreamed 
of, for Jesus is the great Teacher and Saviour 
of the fallen and ignorant race of Adam. 
The world is in darkness, and He comes as 
the true light from heaven to enlighten it. 
Man, apart from the Divine Light of the 
gospel, is an incomprehensible mystery to 
himself. He knows not what he is, nor 
whence he come, nor whither he is going. 
"Man," says Pascal, ''knows not in what 
rank to place himself. He is obviously 
astray, and fallen from his true place with- 



40 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

out being able to find it again. He seeks it 
everyvrliere with uneasiness, and without suc- 
cess, in impenetrable darkness." Philoso- 
phers and mortal teachers have labored to 
dispel this darkness of universal ignorance 
that overshadows the human race, but they 
have all signally and confessedly failed. 
Now and then they have caught a discon- 
nected glimpse of the truth, but all the light 
that they have been able to shed into the 
thick darkness of the world, is nothing more 
than the lurid flashes of heaven's lightning, 
darting and glaring through the blackness of 
the tempestuous night that broods over the 
earth. Here and there they have lighted up 
their little farthing-candles of human dis- 
coveries, whose doubtful and glimmering 
rays are only sufficient to make the circum- 
ambient darkness visible, and to force man 
to feel how miserable and helpless his situ- 
ation is. But, at last, Jesus was born, and in 
him the sun of righteousness arose, and he 
shines forth as the light of the dark world, 
bringing life and immortality to light. He 
appeared among men as the great Teacher of 



THE DIVINE TEACHER. 41 

the human race, and taught man what he is, 
what he was, and what he must become. He 
discovered to him his origin, and revealed to 
him his destiny. He taught man that he is 
fallen, and revealed to him the elevation 
from which he had descended, and pointed 
out the way of recovery. He is the great 
Teacher, the eternal Revealer of the truth, 
and the true light that enlighteneth every 
man that cometh into the world. The pro- 
phets that were before him, and the apostles 
that were after him, were only his messen- 
gers, and could only teach as they learned 
from him. He is the great sun, and the 
original centre of all moral light; and all his 
ministers, prophets, apostles, and preachers, 
are planetary orbs circulating around him, 
and reflecting the rays of truth which he 
sheds upon them. All the rays of light that 
dispel the darkness of the ignorance of sin, 
come originally from Christ, who is the great 
Teacher sent from God, and the true light of 
this dark world. He is not only a teacher 
sent from God, but he is God come down, 

and teaching man. All this is implied in 
4* 



42 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

the idea of Christ as a teacher sent from 
God, and establishing his right to teach as 
one having authority by the wonderful mira- 
cle which he did, and was, unconsciously, 
contained in the admission of Nicodemus. 
But as he did not comprehend the full sig- 
nificance of the mighty miracles which com- 
pelled him to the admission that Jesus was a 
teacher sent from God, so he did not fully 
understand the import of his own confession. 
He unconsciously uttered this glorious truth, 
which then existed in his mind, as the germ 
of an undeveloped idea. He was constrain- 
ed to acknowledge Jesus as a teacher sent 
from God, and to regard him as a prophet 
among prophets; but he failed to grasp the 
full conception of his real character, and to 
recognize him, as he is in truth, as the Pro- 
phet of prophets, and the Teacher of teachers 
- — as God incarnate, teaching men the way 
of truth, and life, and immortality. 



THE DIVINE LIFE-RESTORER. 43 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE DIVINE LIFE-RESTORER. 

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily I say 
unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God/' — John iii. 3. 

A SUPERFICIAL reader would see no connec- 
tion between the declaration of Nicodemus 
and the reply of Jesus, and would suppose 
that something is lacking to complete the 
sense. Accordingly, many commentators 
have very unnecessarily puzzled themselves 
in vain attempts to discover the lacking link, 
which they suppose to be necessary to form 
a nexus between this and the preceding 
verse. But when we get a proper concep- 
tion of the idea that was in Kicodemus's 
mind, and descend to the bottom and com- 
prehend, in all its profundity, the meaning 
of Christ's answer, we will perceive a logical 
and beautiful connection between the two. 



44 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

In order to see this connection, we must 
remember the character and purpose of 
Nicodemus's visit to the Saviour. He came 
as the representative of the Pharisaic mem- 
bers of the Sanhedrim, and sought a private 
interview with the Lord, for the purpose of 
discovering his real character, and the nature 
of his mission to earth. For the purpose of 
making known the design of his visit, he de- 
clared to Jesus the idea which he, and those 
whom he represented, had formed of him, in 
such a way that his declaration amounted to 
an inquiry whether his conception of his 
character and person were true or not. It 
was as much as if he had said, ''We know 
that thou art a teacher sent from God; now 
is this a true and full idea of your mission 
and work on earth?" We have seen that 
this idea is correct as far as it goes, but 
that, after all, it is erroneous, because it 
falls short of expressing the whole truth. 
Now Christ's reply supplies what is lacking 
to this conception of his character to make 
it complete and perfect. Nicodemus said, 
"We know that thou art a teacher come 



THE DIVINE LIFE-RESTORER. 45 

from God;'* and Jesus replied, '^I am not 
merely a Divine Teacher, but also a Divine 
Life-Restorer: for verily, verily, I say unto 
thee, except a man be born again, he can- 
not see the kingdom of God." It was as 
much as if he had said, "The world is not 
merely dark in ignorance, and so needs new 
light, but it is also dead in sin, and so needs 
new life. I have come not merely to in- 
struct the ignorant world, but also to regene- 
rate the dead world. A man must not only 
have his mind enlightened by me, as the 
Divine Teacher, but he must also be born 
again and receive a new life from me, as the 
Divine Life-Restorer, or he can never become 
my disciple, and enter the kingdom which I 
have come to set up on earth." Christ's 
reply, added to the idea which Nicodemus 
had, completes the conception of the char- 
acter of the Saviour, and presents him as 
the Divine Teacher of the ignorant world, and 
the Divine Life-Restorer of the dead world. 
The gospel requires not only new views of 
the truth, but also a new man to practise 
the new truths received; and the Saviour 



46 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

comes, therefore, as the light and life of the 
dark and dead world. The world is dark in 
its ignorance, and it feels its darkness, and 
seeks the light with uneasiness and without 
success. It is also dead in sin; but it is un- 
conscious of its spiritual death. Now Christ 
came into this dark and dead world both to 
dispel the darkness of ignorance, and to 
bring life and immortality to light. He re- 
generates with a new life in time, and gives 
hope of a blessed immortality beyond the 
confines of time ; and the life which he gives 
begins here, and is carried to perfection in 
the regions of immortal bliss and glory. 

The life which Jesus restores to the soul 
comes by birth. It is not a mere renewal of 
the mind by dispelling from it the darkness 
of error, and imparting to it the illumination 
of truth. Such a renewal would be a mere 
reformation, and could be efi'ected by Jesus 
in his character as the great Teacher ; but, as 
the Divine Life-Restorer, he performs a far 
deeper work in the hearts of men — the work 
of regeneration. Reformation comes through 
truth imparted, and affects only the external 



THE DIVINE LIFE-RESTORER. 47 

manners of life; but regeneration comes 
through grace infused, and affects the deep 
fountains and well-springs of being and 
action. Reformation is a change from bad 
to good in the external conduct; and regene- 
ration is a radical change in the subjective 
principles of moral actions. The one is 
effected by natural means, and the other is 
the product of supernatural agencies. Christ 
might be a reformer if he were nothing more 
than a man; but he would not be a regene- 
rator unless he were divine, as well as 
human. 

This radical change in heart is called a 
birth, and it bears some analogy to natural 
birth. As the child in natural birth experi- 
ences a fundamental change in the condition 
of its being, is introduced into a new element, 
made acquainted with new objects, and be- 
gins an entirely new mode of existence, so 
the soul, in its supernatural birth, experi- 
ences a fundamental change in the condition 
of its being, is introduced into the element of 
holiness from that of sin, is made acquainted 
with spiritual things in a spiritual way, and 



48 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

begins to live a divine life in Christ Jesus. 
There is as much difference between an un- 
regenerate and regenerate soul, as there is 
between the embryo and the born child. 
Before birth the child exists, and has a kind 
of life, but in its birth it is introduced into a 
new sphere of existence, and to a new kind 
of life; and so the soul exists, and has a kind 
of life before regeneration, but in its regene- 
ration it is introduced into a new sphere of 
existence, and has a new kind of life. In 
both physical and spiritual birth there is a 
radical change — in the one instance in the 
state of the body, and in the other in the 
state of the soul, but in neither case is there 
a change of essence. And as by the one we 
become citizens in this world, so by the 
other we become citizens in the kingdom of 
God. 

This spiritual change, which every man 
must experience before he can become a 
citizen of Christ's kingdom, is called a second 
birth. ''Ye must be born again.'' Some 
would read, "ye must be horn from above.'' 
We own that the Greek, (dvwdeu,) is am- 



THE DIVINE LIFE-RESTORER. 49 

biguous and will bear this translation, and 
also, that the idea thus expressed is true; 
but the learned Grotius has remarked that 
in the Hebrew and Aramaic, — in one of 
which languages our Lord, discoursing with 
a Rabbinical Jew, certainly spoke, — there is 
no word of double meaning, corresponding 
to the Greek word here translated again, 
and as Nicodemus's reply shows that he 
understood the Saviour to speak of a second 
birth, we conclude that the translation in the 
text is correct. For the same reason, we 
cannot agree with Alford that ''lorn afresK' 
would be a better translation. The idea in 
this construction would be, that unless a man 
begins his life entirely anew, he cannot be 
Christ's disciple. This is a truth, but it is 
not the fundamental idea expressed in the 
text. Perhaps the Evangelist used this 
ambiguous word in the Greek under the 
guidance of the Spirit, because the three 
ideas expressed in it are all true. It is a 
second birth, which is from dbove^ and by 
which one begins his existence afresh. As 
it is called a second birth, it is compared to 
5 



50 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

some former birth or life, and it is generally 
supposed that the spiritual is here compared 
to the natural birth. This is only partly 
true. As this spiritual change is called a 
birth, it is compared with natural birth, but 
the word again implies a deeper idea, and 
carries us back to the former spiritual life 
which humanity lived in Adam, and lost in 
his fall. Adam, in his primeval state, lived 
in holiness, but by his fall he died in sin, and 
plunged his whole race into spiritual death. 
Now Christ comes, as the second Adam, to 
restore that life which was lost in the defec- 
tion and sin of the first. He comes to 
restore to the children of men that original 
life, which the race possessed in its primeval 
pair before they died in sin. He comes, not 
to give to men something which the race 
never had, but to restore the life which they 
once possessed, but have now lost. Hence, 
the life which Jesus imparts to the believer's 
soul is called a second birth. This new life 
is not a birth from the womb, but a birth 
from the tomb. It is a spiritual resurrection 
from the grave of sin. Christ comes, then, 
as the Divine Life-Restorer to restore to the 



THE DIVINE LIFE-RESTORER. 51 

race that spiritual life which was once theirs 
in Adam, and which they lost in his fall, and 
have forfeited, again and again, in their own 
actual and personal transgressions. If, 
therefore, we merely regard Christ as a 
great teacher — as a prophet among prophets, 
or even, as the Prophet of all prophets and 
the Divine Teacher of the human race — and 
fail to conceive of him, in his higher charac- 
ter, as the Divine Life-Restorer of the dead 
world, we will not form anything like an 
adequate conception of his person and mis- 
sion to earth. Christ came into this world 
as the true Light, shining in darkness and 
enlightening every man that cometh into the 
world, and as the true Life, walking among 
the dead, and reinvigorating with a new 
spiritual life every one who becomes his 
disciple. And to restore to those now 
spiritually dead this new spiritual life, was 
the chief end of his mission and work on 
earth. We will never see the Saviour in the 
glory and dignity of his exalted character 
until we sit at his feet and learn the truth 
from him as the great Teacher, and praise 
and adore him as the Divine Life-Restorer. 



62 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

NICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF AND RIDICULE. 

" Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born 
when he is old? Can he enter the second time into 
his mother's womb, and be born?'* — John iii. 4. 

NicoDEMUS was astounded and offended at 
the reply of Jesus — it was so different from 
what he expected. It was not a direct 
answer to his words, but a reply to the 
secret thoughts of his mind; hence his as- 
tonishment. It did not flatter his know- 
ledge and attainments, but revealed the 
depth and darkness of his ignorance; hence 
his offence. Nicodemus came to Jesus, vain 
of his learning, and proud of his works, but 
the Saviour informs him that it is not learn- 
ing^ but a new life; not new worJcs, but a 
new man to do them, that are the funda- 
mental requisites to discipleship in his 
school. If Nicodemus would become his 



NICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF AND RIDICULE. 53 

disciple, he must begin with a new life, 
and that new life must begin with a new 
birth, Nicodemus did not expect this kind 
of an answer. He was astounded at the 
novelty and mystery of his doctrine, and 
offended at the humility it required. Be- 
cause he could not comprehend the teach- 
ings of Jesus, he rejected them with un- 
belief, and turned the whole matter into 
ridicule. " Can a man be born when he is 
old? Can he enter a second time into his 
mother's womb, and be born?" 

The doctrine of spiritual regeneration was 
not an absolute novelty, now taught for the 
first time. It might have been a new idea 
to Nicodemus, but that fact would only 
prove his profound ignorance of the spiritual 
significance of the Old Testament, of which 
he professed to be a teacher. Men, before 
the coming of Christ, could no m.ore be 
saved without the new birth than they can 
now; and, accordingly, the doctrine of 
spiritual regeneration is abundantly and 
clearly taught in the law and prophets. 
We give the following passages as proof of 
5* 



54 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

this fact. ^'I will give them one heart, and 
I will put a new spirit within you; and I 
will take the stony heart out of their flesh, 
and will give a heart of flesh: that they may^ 
walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordi- 
nances, and do them : and they shall be my 
people, and I will be their God.'' (Ezekiel 
xi. 19, 20.) " Cast away from you all your 
transgressions, whereby ye have trans- 
gressed: and make you a new heart and a 
new spirit; for why will ye die, house of 
Israel?" (Ezekiel xviii. 31.) "A new 
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit 
will I put within you." (Ezekiel xxxvi. 
26.) "I will give them a heart to know 
that I am the Lord: and they shall be my 
people, and I will be their God: for they 
shall return unto me with their whole 
heart." (Jeremiah xxiv. 7.) 

We could multiply these quotations to an 
indefinite extent, but these are enough to 
show that the doctrine of spiritual regenera- 
tion is fully and distinctly taught in the Old 
Testament; and had not Nicodemus been 
profoundly and culpably ignorant of the 



NICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF AND RIDICULE. 55 

Scriptures, of which he pretended to be a 
public teacher, this doctrine would not have 
been a novelty to him. ''Though the form 
of expression which Christ employed," says 
Calvin, "was not contained in the law and 
prophets, yet as renewal is frequently men- 
tioned in Old Testament Scriptures, and is 
one of the first principles of faith, it is evi- 
dent how imperfectly skilled the Scribes, at 
that time, were in reading the Scriptures. 
It was certainly not one man only who was 
to blame for not knowing what was meant by 
the grace of regeneration ; but as almost all 
devoted their attention to useless subtleties, 
what was of chief importance in the doctrines 
of piety was disregarded." Neither Nico- 
demus, nor those who sent him, knew any- 
thing of spiritual regeneration by personal 
experience, and, perhaps, they rejected the 
doctrine with contempt, because it is so 
antagonistic and humiliating to the pride of 
the human heart. But still, we cannot 
believe it possible that Nicodemus could 
have so entirely and stupidly misunderstood 
our Lord's words, as his question would 



56 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

seem to imply. The idea of the new birth 
was not altogether foreign to Rabbinical 
views. They described, as Dr. Lightfoot 
informs us, a proselyte when baptized as 
"Siout parvulus jam natus.'' We, there-" 
fore, agree with Alford and Stier in thinking 
that Nicodemus manifested something of the 
spirit that would not understand, and some- 
thing of a disposition to turn to ridicule 
what he heard. He had no spiritual dis- 
cernment of this doctrine, nor experimental 
acquaintance with it, although he had, 
doubtless, heard of it as a theory in the- 
ology; and because it was contrary to his 
own personal experience, he treats the most 
serious of doctrines with frivolity, and turns 
it to sport and ridicule. And this has been 
the policy in argument with skeptics and 
rationalists from Nicodemus down to the 
present day. When Voltaire could not 
refute his opponent, he sought to silence 
him with an unanswerable sneer; and when 
he found that he could not argue the world 
out of religion, he attempted to laugh reli- 
gion out of the world. It is the custom of 



NICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF AND RIDICULE. 57 

the Rationalists of the present day to laugh 
at the high mysteries of religion, which they 
cannot comprehend, and to turn to sport 
and ridicule such doctrines as are distasteful 
to their proud and corrupt hearts. Is not 
this the way with many hearers of the 
gospel? It requires them to begin a new 
life, to deny the flesh, and to mortify its 
lusts, and to follow Christ in holiness and 
newness of life, through evil as well as good 
report, all of which they are unwilling to 
do, and so they turn the religion of Jesus 
into ridicule. With a laugh they stifle their 
consciences, and with a frivolous jest they 
put off" the most serious concern of their 
existence. Oftentimes when the preacher, 
in all earnestness, preaches the gospel, 
sinners make merriment of him and his 
message. 

The man of God proclaims that all men 
are by nature dead in trespasses and sin; 
the sinner laughs and exclaims, "What non- 
sense! I am as much a live man as he is.'' 
The preacher teaches. Ye must be born 
again; the sinner cries out, ''How ridicu- 



58 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

lous ! Can a man that is old be born again ? 
Can he enter the second time into his 
mother's womb, and be born?" The minis- 
ter is in deep earnest, and the church is 
stirred up to an unwonted zeal, and God*s 
Spirit is poured out, and souls are converted. 
There is deep and genuine feeling, and a 
little nervous excitement in the congrega- 
tion. The preacher pleads with tears 
streaming from his eyes, the congregation 
prays fervently, and the new-born sons and 
daughters of God burn in the ardency of 
their first love. But there are present un- 
moved lookers on, some proud in their 
w^orldly w^isdom, some frivolous in their 
folly, and some stupified in their debauch- 
eries, who make sport and ridicule of the 
whole matter. They say, one to another, 
"What is all this ado and uproar about? 
One would think the house is on fire, but we 
see no danger nor cause for all this commo- 
tion. These men are surely full of new 
w^ine." And there are those proud of their 
learning and refinement who say, '^Well, I 
would like to have religion, but I cannot 



NICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF AND RIDICULE. 59 

stoop to get it in this way." And others 
there are who say, "Well, if that is religion, 
I do not want to get it at all." There are 
many who, like Nicodemus, with some frivo- 
lous and sportive remark, stave off- convic- 
tion from their minds. Many, like him, are 
too proud to be saved in the gospel way, so 
they jest with their Saviour, and sport with 
their own immortal souls. 

There is nothing more common nor more 
dangerous than this spirit of levity in reli- 
gious matters. It is peculiar to no one class 
of persons. The high and the low, the 
learned and the ignorant, are all prone to it. 
Whatever is mysterious or distasteful is 
turned to sport, and dismissed with a light 
remark and a laugh. Just at this point 
philosophers, with their proud smiles of in- 
credulity and derision, and their sneers of 
contempt for the mysteries of religion, and 
the vulgar, with their boisterous merriment 
and their obscene jests at parsons and saints^ 
meet, and go laughing together in companies 
to hell. It was in this spirit that Nico- 
demus first met the doctrine of Jesus re- 



60 NICODEMUS WJTH JESUS. 

specting the new birth. He did not, per- 
haps, fully comprehend the doctrine; but he 
understood enough to know that it was hu- 
miliating to his pride, so he attempted to 
refute, and, in proud derision, to reduce it to 
a ridiculous absurdity. He took the words 
of the Saviour in their most literal significa- 
tion, and put upon them a forced meaning 
that Christ never designed them to bear. 
But this is just what was to be expected 
from one in his position ; for, as a teacher of 
the law, he busied himself about the letter of 
its meaning, and never penetrated to the 
spirit of its signification. If he had been 
familiar with the spirit of the law and prophets 
which he pretended to teach, he would have 
understood the doctrine of the new birth, 
which, as we have already shown, is abun- 
dantly and clearly taught in the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures. If we could only get men 
to lay aside their frivolity, and to divest 
themselves of the garments of pride, and to 
think seriously, and to ponder well the doc- 
trines of religion, they would soon come to 
Christ in humility and penitence, and sit at 



NICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF AND RIDICULE. 61 

his feet with the docility of little children, and 
learn from him as the great Teacher the way 
of pardon, and receive from him, as the 
divine Life-Restorer, immortal life. 



62 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTBE y. 

THE NATURE OF REGElSrERATIOK 

" Jesii? answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except 
a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot 
enter the kingdom of God."' — John iii. 6. 

Christ does not directly notice the ridicule 
of Nicodemus, but reiterates most solemnly 
the doctrine which he had laid down as a 
fundamental principle in his gospel, and 
then proceeds, in his oflSce as the Divine 
Teacher, to unfold and explain the way in 
Avhich, in his higher character as the Divine 
Life-Restorer, he gives life to dead sinners. 
Christ's reply, reiterating his doctrine of the 
new birth, is as much as if he had said to 
Nicodemus, ''You may ridicule my doctrine, 
and make all manner of sport of it, but your 
derision and contempt cannot alter it. It is 
true, and there it stands, and there it must 
stand forever. You may reject it with 



NATURE OF REGENERATION. 63 

scorn, but it is the only way in whicli you 
can ever find entrance into the kingdom of 
God; for I most solemnly declare and 
SAvear* unto thee, except a man be born of 
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into 
the kingdom of God." 

The new birth is here declared to be the 
only possible entrance into the kingdom of 
God. Now, if we get a proper conception 
of the phrase '^ kingdom of God" in this 
connection, it will throw much light on the 
nature of the new birth, which conducts to 
it. This phrase is of frequent occurrence in 
the New Testament, and has four different 
significations, all of which are intimately 
connected with each other, and sometimes 
all four are blended together in the same 
passage. It sometimes means the church 
invisible in heaven, sometimes the church 
visible on earth, sometimes a state of grace 
in the heart which fits for worthy member- 
ship in the church, and sometimes it means 

* The repetition of amen, or verily, verily, among the 
Jewish writers, was considered of equal import with the 
most solemn oath. — Dr. Adam Clarke, 



64 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

the true doctrine of the gospel which the 
church is to teach. When we read of 
preaching the kingdom of Grod, as we do in 
Mark i. 14, and Luke iv. 43, "the kingdom 
of God'' means the doctrine of the gospel. 
When we are told to seek iSrst the kingdom 
of God, and that the kingdom of God is not 
meat and drink, but righteousness, and 
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, as we are 
in Matt. vi. 33, and Romans xiv. 17, it is 
evident that "the kingdom of God" means a 
state of grace which fits for worthy member- 
ship in the church on earth and in the skies. 
The passages are so numerous in which the 
phrase, "kingdom of God," means both the 
church militant on earth and the church^ 
triumphant in heaven, that we will make no 
reference to them. 

As the phrase bears these four significa- 
tions, the question arises, in what sense did 
our Lord use it in his conversation with 
Nicodemus? We think it is probable that 
all four of the meanings are here blended to- 
gether. One must be regenerated before he 
can receive, with spiritual discernment, the 



NATURE OF REGENERATION. 65 

doctrine of the gospel; and it is by regenera- 
tion that the kingdom of God comes into the 
heart of the man; and it is by regeneration 
alone that we are fitted to be worthy mem- 
bers of the church on earth; and it is only 
those that are really regenerated by the 
Spirit, that will ever find entrance into the 
kingdom of God in heaven. It is clear that 
one must be born again before he can enter 
the kingdom of God in either one of the 
four senses of the phrase. While we think 
it is probable that all four significations are 
here blended together, we regard the last 
two ideas as the prominent ones in the pas- 
sage. The new birth alone qualifies for 
membership in the church terrestrial and in 
the church celestial. By the baptism of 
water we are qualified for, and admitted into 
membership in the visible church, and by the 
baptism of the Spirit, we are prepared for, 
and admitted into membership in the in- 
visible church. Baptism is an external sign 
of internal regeneration, and the visible 
church is to the invisible, just what baptism 
is to regeneration — an external manifestation 
6* 



66 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

of it; and as baptism is the external initia- 
tory rite of introduction into the visible 
church, so regeneration is the internal initia- 
tory rite of admission into the invisible 
church. Unless we are born of water in bap- 
tism, we cannot become members of the 
church militant on earth; and unless we are 
born of the Spirit in regeneration, we can 
never become members of the church trium- 
phant in heaven. This explanation of the 
passage does not teach the doctrine of bap- 
tismal regeneration, but only that baptism is 
an outward sign of the inward grace of re- 
generation, and admits to membership in the 
visible church on earth, which is an outward 
sign of the invisible church in heaven, the 
only entrance into which is the new birth by 
the Spirit. 

The new birth is, then, a radical change 
in the sinner's soul by the power of the 
Spii'it, through the grace of Christ, which 
fits him for communion with the Saviour and 
saints on earth, and for communion with the 
triune God and holy angels in the kingdom 
of glory beyond the skies. It is a superna- 



NATURE OF REGENERATION. 67 

tural change wrought in the soul by the 
agency of the Holy Ghost, and, therefore, to 
the mmd of man it is a mystery of grace — a 
fact revealed but not explained. As it is the 
work of the Infinite, the finite cannot com- 
prehend it in all its points and bearings. It 
must be experienced to be understood, and, 
even then, it will not be fully comprehended. 
We may know it as a fact, but we will never 
be able to tell all about how it takes place. 
Just as it is in natural birth, when born we 
know that we are born, but who has ever 
been able to tell how he was conceived and 
brought forth? But we shall say more about 
the mystery of the new birth in a chapter 
especially devoted to that head. We have 
already given a general explanation of it, 
and we will now speak briefly of some of the 
particulars relating to it. 

1. It is a change from spiritual death to 
spiritual life. By the fall, the whole race is 
given over to the dominion of sin, so that all 
the descendants of Adam are, by nature, 
dead in trespasses and sins. Now regenera- 
tion is raising the dead soul to spiritual life. 



68 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

By nature the understanding is darkened, 
the affections are perverted, and the will is 
enslaved to evil. In this state the soul is 
totally disinclined and disabled to all good. 
Now regeneration is the enlightenment of the 
understanding, so that it has a spiritual dis- 
cernment of the truth as it is in Jesus ; the 
regulation of the affections, so that they love 
holiness; and the renewal of the will so that 
it chooses the good. Thus the soul is raised 
to a new spiritual existence, and enabled and 
inclined to embrace Christ and his gospel, 
and to live a divine life in communion with 
the Spirit, and in obedience to the Father, 
through the mediation of the Son. 

2. This change is total and universal, 
reaching to every faculty and capacity of 
the soul, but it is not a change of the essence 
of the soul. All the qualities and disposi- 
tions of the mind are altered, but its essence 
remains the same. The old soul is not anni- 
hilated and a new one created in its stead, 
but all the old habits and tendencies of the 
soul are destroyed, and new and holy ones 
imparted in their room. As in the resurrec- 



NATURE OF REGENERATION. 69 

tion of the body, the essence continues the 
same, but the body shall be spiritualized, so 
in the regeneration of the soul, the essence 
continues the same, but all its faculties, 
capacities, and habits are evangelized. It 
is in this sense, that old things pass away 
and all things become new. After con- 
version, the soul does not have one less, 
or one more new faculty or capacity than 
it had before. The powers of the soal 
remain unchanged except in the motives 
that actuate them, and the ends to which 
they point in their works. Neither does 
this great change annihilate the natural 
temperaments of the mind. They are only 
modified by grace. Hence we find among 
Christians all kinds of temperaments. There 
are sanguine, phlegmatic, bilious, and me- 
lancholic Christians; but these natural tem.- 
peraments are restrained and regulated by 
grace. If a man is impetuous before his re- 
generation, he ,will be a Peter afterwards; 
if he is of a doubting cast of mind, he will 
be a Thomas; if he has a tender and an 
affectionate heart, he will be a loving disci- 



70 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

pie like John; if he is bold, fearless, ener- 
getic, and persevering, he will be a disciple 
of mighty works and glorious achievements 
like Paul. 

3. The new birth is a supernatural change. 
Those who are born again, are born of the 
Spirit. They are not born of blood, nor of 
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
but of God. It is a change of nature; there- 
fore, the power that effects it, must be above 
nature — supernatural. It is a spiritual re- 
surrection; and the dead soul can no more 
change its own nature from sin to holiness, 
than the dead man can raise himself out of 
the grave to life again. " You hath He 
quickened who ^vere dead in trespasses and 
sins." A man by natural efforts may reform 
his life in external conduct, but he cannot 
by native strength regenerate his heart. 

4. Though the change is perfect in parts, 
it is imperfect in degree. Regeneration is a 
total and universal change in all parts of the 
man, though none of the parts are at once 
perfectly matured in the Divine life ; but the 
new creature groweth up to perfection. It 



NATURE OF REGENERATION. 71 

IS a birth. At birth the new-born infant ex- 
periences a total change in the condition of 
its being, and has all the parts that belong 
to the matured man, but it is by degrees that 
these parts grow and attain to the maturity 
of life; so in regeneration the soul experi- 
ences a total change and receives all the 
graces that belong to the matured Christian, 
but it is by degrees that these graces are 
brought to maturity. Hence the apostle 
says to such, "as new-born babes desire the 
sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow 
thereby." 

5. Time would fail us to trace this radical 
change through all its particulars, therefore 
it must suffice, in a little work like this, to 
add concerning it this much. It is a real 
change — a change from nature to grace, and 
from sin to holiness; it is an inward change 
of principle and end of action — an outward 
change in the objects and operations of the 
mind; it is a new habit in the soul, disposing 
to every good word and work ; it is a new 
law of grace in the heart, giving the disposi- 
tion and ability to obey the outward law of 



72 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

the word in the life; it is Christ formed in 
the heart — the Holy Spirit taking up his re- 
sidence there — and the image of God restored 
to the soul. In one word, it is the partici- 
pation of the human in the Divine nature, and 
the happy reunion of the soul of man to his 
Creator. This is the great change, which ^ 
every man must experience in the new birth 
before he can enter into the kingdom of 
God. 



man's state by nature. 73 



CHAPTER VI. 

MAN'S STATE BY NATURE. 

" That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which 
is born of the Spirit is spirit." — John iii. 6. 

After reiterating, in the most solemn and 
emphatic manner, his doctrine of the new 
birth, which he had declared to be, not of 
man^ but of the Spirit, he proceeds, without 
noticing his ridicule, to answer Nicodemus's 
hypothetical question, by telling him that, 
even could a man enter the second time into 
bis mother's womb and be born again, it 
would not be the birth of which he speaks, 
nor answer in its place ; because that which 
is born of the flesh is flesh, and only that 
which born of the Spirit is spirit. You will 
notice that the Saviour partly answered 
Nicodemus's objection in the preceding verse, 
where he tells him that man must be born of 
the Spirit. It was as much as if he had 
7 



74 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

said, the birth of which I speak is spiritual, 
and inasmuch as jou suppose it to be flesh- 
ly, you entirely misapprehend my meaning. 
He now proceeds farther to teach that, even 
if a second fleshly birth were possible, it 
would not accomplish the necessary change 
in man's nature. A second birth of flesh 
would only produce flesh, and by it a man 
would not be any more fitted for the king- 
dom of heaven than he was by his first birth. 
What is required is a new birth by the Spirit, 
in order to make man a spiritual being and 
fit him for the kingdom of heaven, which is 
spiritual. 

When it is said, that which is born of flesh 
is flesh, we are not to understand that all sin 
consists in sensuality. Under the term Jlesh 
is comprehended the whole sinful nature of 
man in both soul and body, and under the 
term spirit his whole regenerated nature. 
The word flesh here means what Paul desig- 
nates as carnal mindedness and the old man, 
and spirit denotes that which he designates 
as spiritual mindedness and the new man. 
By natural birth nothing is produced but the 



man's state ey nature. 75 

natural sinfulness of man's fallen state, and 
if a man should thus be born twice or twenty 
times, by natural birth nothing else could be 
produced. It is a spiritual birth that is re- 
quired, that man might become a spiritual 
and holy being. 

The law that Christ lays down is, that 
everything begets its own kind. The apple- 
tree produces apples, the fig-tree yields figs, 
and the horse begets a horse; so fallen and 
sinful man begets fallen and sinful children. 
By the law of representation, in the divine 
economy of the covenant of works, Adam 
was made the federal head and representa- 
tive of his race. The law of generation de- 
termined the character of those whom he re- 
presented. All, therefore, who descend from 
Adam by natural generation, sinned in him, 
and fell with him in his first transgression, 
inasmuch as he was constituted their federal 
head, and the guilt and consequence of his 
sin in the fall are imputed to, and visited 
upon them by the law of representation. All 
Adam's descendants are, therefore, born into 
the world sinners and under the curse of 



76 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

God's law. As all men are sinful by nature, 
and as everything begets its own kind, it 
follows that everything that springs from 
fallen man is sinful. That which is born of 
flesh is flesh, is the same in meaning as, that 
which is born of the sinner is sinful. 

Not only are the children of the sinful 
race of fallen man born sinful, but also the 
feelings, the thoughts, the words, and the 
works of fallen man are all sinful. From the 
unregenerate man, there can spring nothing 
but sin. The very ploughing of the wicked 
is sin. The very best deeds of the uncon- 
verted are but painted vices. It is not the 
external matter of a deed that makes it good 
or evil, but the motive from which it springs, 
and the end to which it is directed, deter- 
mine its moral character. The only proper 
motive for any action is love to Grod. Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart and with all thy strength. The only 
proper end for an action is the glovT/ of Grod. 
V/hether therefore ye eat or drink, or what- 
soever ye do, do all to the glory of Grod. Now 
as love to Grod is the only lawful motive of 



man's state by nature. 77 

action, and a desire to glorify God the only 
lawful end of human conduct, it can be easily 
shown how it is impossible for an uncon- 
verted man to do a single good and accepta- 
ble deed. Paul tells us that the carnal mind, 
by which he means the unregenerate soul, is 
enmity against God, is not subject to his 
law, neither indeed can be. If the carnal 
and unregenerate heart is enmity against 
God, it cannot love him and act from love to 
him; and as it is not subject to his law and 
neither indeed can be, and as his law is 
that all things should be done to the glory 
of his name, it cannot direct its actions to 
the glory of God. It follows, therefore, that 
all the actions of unregenerate men, as they 
can neither spring from the proper motive 
nor be directed to a proper end, are sinful. 
The expression, ^Hhat which is born of the 
flesh is flesh," means that whatsoever the un- 
converted sinner does is sin. His nature is 
sinful, and whatever proceeds . from his na- 
ture partakes of the sinfulness of his nature. 
The good tree brings forth good fruit, and an 
evil tree brings^forth evil fruit. A good 
7* 



78 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

apple-tree produces good apples, and a crab- 
apple-tree produces nothing but crabs. A 
good man produces good works, and an evil 
man produces only evil works. 

When we say that everything that the 
unconverted man does is sinful, we do not 
mean to say, that all unconverted men are 
equally sinful, or that all their actions are 
equally wicked. Among evil fruits some are 
worse than others. The fruits of some evil 
trees are merely unwholesome and bitter, 
while the fruit of others are so poisonous that 
it produces instantaneous death. So it is 
with the sinful deeds of unregenerate men. 
Some of them are positively hurtful, and 
others simply unprofitable so far as a holy 
life is concerned. Some of them may be like 
the crab among good apples. Outwardly it 
looks like a small apple and has a delightful 
odor, but when bitten it is found to be sour, 
and cannot be eaten without sugar. Just so 
many deeds of the flesh may be outwardly 
like holy deeds, and be delightful in the con- 
templation, but they cannot be received and 



man's state by nature. 79 

turned to any benefit without the overruling 
and modifying grace of God. 

It follows from this, that a man cannot- 
convert his own heart and change his nature 
from sin to holiness, for until his nature is 
regenerated he is absolutely unable to do any 
good thino;. That which is born of flesh is 
flesh, and the flesh cannot therefore regener- 
ate itself, and in its own strength pass from 
sin to holiness. A man must be born again 
by the renewal of the Spirit before he is ca- 
pable of a single good action; hence, it is 
perfectly idle for a man to talk about regen- 
erating his own heart. The stream cannot 
rise above the level of the fountain, and sin 
cannot produce holiness. That which is en- 
genderea of the stag and born of the hind, is 
always a deer and never a lion, and so that 
which is engendered of the flesh and born of 
fallen humanity, is always sin and never ho- 
liness. Throughout universal nature, in ani- 
mate and inanimate creatures, and among 
sentient and intelligent beings, the invariable 
law is, that like begetteth its like, and no- 



80 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

thing can generate a being higher in the 
scale of existence than itself. 

Only that which is born of the Spirit, is 
spirit. All that which is spiritually good in 
this sinful world, is the production of the 
Holy Ghost. Every good feeling, thought, 
word, or action, that is felt, thought, spoken, 
or done by mortal man, is begotten in him 
by the power and regenerating influence of 
the Holy Ghost. Man, by nature, is lost in 
a state of total depravity and universal cor- 
ruption, and everything that originates in his 
unconverted heart is unholy; for, who can 
bring a clean thing out of an unclean? It is 
only when man has been washed in the laver 
of regeneration by the living Spirit of the 
eternal God, that he becomes capable of feel- 
ing a good emotion or desire, or of exer- 
cising a godly thought, or of speaking a holy 
word, or of doing a truly righteous deed. It 
is only the Holy Spirit, descending into the 
sinner's heart in his renewing grace, that re- 
generates his soul; and dwelling there in his 
sanctifying power, that enables him to live a 
holy and spiritual life. 



THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 81 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 

^^ Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born 
again." — John iii. 7. 

Since that which is born of the flesh is flesh 
— since man is by nature sinful, and inde- 
pendently of the regenerating grace of the 
Spirit, is absolutely incapable of any spiritu- 
ally good action— marvel not that I said 
unto thee, ye must be born again. Ye must 
be born again, or ye can never enter into the 
kingdom of God. There is an emphasis on 
the word ye in this solemn declaration. It is 
meant to be universal and to include all flesh 
except the person of the Divine speaker. He 
does not say we, but ye must be born again. 
Christ is man as well as God, and though 
according to his humanity he was born of 
the race of Adam, yet he knew no sin and 
had no corruption of nature, and so needed 



82 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

not this second birth. All mankind, descend- 
ing from Adam in ordinary generation, sin- 
ned in him, and fell with him, in his first 
transgression, and are so made partakers in 
his guilt and depravity ; but Christ, though 
born in the flesh of the race of Adam, did 
not descend from him in ordinary generation. 
His was a most extraordinary birth. Accord- 
ing to the flesh he had a mother but no 
father ; and in his divinity, he had a father 
but no mother. God is his eternal Father, 
and He is the eternal Son. The eternal 
generation of the Son from the Father is one 
of the inscrutable mysteries of our holy reli- 
gion, and no less so is his incarnation of the 
Virgin Mary. Conceived by the power of 
the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin, 
he was born of her, and yet he was without 
sin ; and, because he was without sin, it was 
not necessary that he should be born again. 
the mystery of his conception, birth, life, 
and death ! Without man he was conceived 
in the womb of a virgin ! Without sin he was 
born of woman ! Without sin of his own he 
suffered and died for the sins of others! 



THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 83 

And as in his birth, he sprung from a vir- 
ginal womb, from which no child before had 
been born, so in his death he was laid in a 
new tomb in which no mortal before had laid! 
Born of the poor and buried by the rich! 
Because in his incarnation he was born with- 
out man and without sin, death could not 
hold him, and the grave could not detain 
him. He burst the bars of death and tri- 
umphed over the grave and Satan. He was 
absolutely without sin, and could not there- 
fore be born again. His birth was excep- 
tional, but all others descending from Adam 
in ordinary generation, are born into this 
world with depraved and guilty natures, and 
must, therefore, be born again, or they can 
never see God or enter into the kingdom 
of heaven. 

1. Ye must be born again, because with- 
out the regeneration of the Spirit man can- 
not live a holy life; and only a holy life can 
be pleasing in the sight of a holy God. That 
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and man 
must be born of the Spirit, in order to become 
spiritual. We have seen in the preceding 



84 NICODEMUS WITH JBSUS. 

chapter man's natural inability to all good. 
The best works of the unregenerated are but 
glittering sins. Without regeneration there 
can be no faith, and "without faith it is im- 
possible to please God.'' "Whatsoever is 
not of faith is sin." Faith is the vital act of 
a living soul. It is a spiritual fruit that 
grows only on a spiritual tree. It is only 
when we are transplanted into the garden of 
Jesus by regenerating grace, that we can 
have faith, and it is only when we have 
faith, that we can please God, or do anything 
but sin. 

2. Ye must be born again, because regen- 
eration is absolutely necessary to qualify 
fallen man for communion with God. Like 
seeks its like, and there can be no communion 
between those totally dissimilar in character. 
"Can two walk together except they be 
agreed?" God and the unregenerate sinner 
are as much unlike each other, as darkness 
is different from light. They cannot agree 
in a single particular, for God abominates 
sin, and the carnal mind is enmity against 
God, and cannot be subject to his law. What 



THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 85 

communion hath light with darkness, or what 
concord can there be between Christ and 
Belial? Will the lamb gambol with the 
wolf, or the dove consort with the vulture? 
No more can God hold fellowship with the 
sinner, and Christ commune with the unre- 
generate. An agreement must be made be- 
tween God and the sinner before there can 
be any communion between them. They 
must be made alike in character, or they can 
have no fellowship with each other. Now 
God is immutable. He cannot change and 
become like the sinner, in order to walk with 
him. The sinner must be changed and made 
like God, or he can never commune with his 
Maker. He must be born again or he will 
never be fit for God's society. 

3. Ye must be born again, because the 
new birth is necessary to prepare fallen man 
for heaven. You must be prepared for 
heaven in time, or you can never be admitted 
to its joys in eternity. No preparation can 
be made beyond the grave for the next life. 
All the lively stones that are to be built into 
the glorious spiritual temple in the upper 
8 



86 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS, 

Jerusalem, are prepared on earth for their 
places in the skies. When Solomon built 
his magnificent temple on Mount Moriah, 
there ¥?as not heard in Jerusalem the sound 
of a hammer or any other instrument of 
iron. All the stones were prepared for their 
places in the quarry where they were dug. 
This temple on earth was a type of that 
spiritual temple of lively stones which is now 
being built in Christ in the celestial Jerusa- 
lem. All the saints, who are the lively 
stones to be built into that glorious temple 
above, are here to be dug out of the quarry 
of sin and fitted for the kingdom of heaven 
by regenerating grace, or they can never be 
translated to the skies. 

Heaven is as unsuitable for the unregen- 
erate as they are unsuited for it. There is 
nothing there that can correspond to their 
taste or contribute to their enjoyment. They 
have not even learned the language of 
heaven. They could not talk with the 
angels and saints and the blessed Saviour. 
They know only the vocabulary of sin, and 
can neither speak nor understand the dialect 



THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 87 

of the skies. They can neither relish nor 
digest the food of the supernal world. The 
meat and the drink of the celestial beings is 
to enjoy God while they glorify him. Un- 
regenerate souls could not live on this 
spiritual food. They could neither perform, 
nor take delight in, the employments of 
heaven. The employment of the saints are 
to contemplate God's holy attributes, to be- 
hold his face, and to move in swift obedience 
to perform his will. The unregenerate can- 
not contemplate God's holy attributes with 
complacency, nor bear to behold his face, 
which always frowns on sin, and they have 
no skill in the performance of his will. 
They could not sing the songs of the re- 
deemed, for they have never washed their 
robes in the Lamb's blood and made them 
white. What could the unregenerate do in 
the kingdom of heaven? They could find 
no peace, nor joy, nor rest for their guilty 
and unholy souls in the kingdom of absolute 
purity and perfect holiness. As the foul 
beasts and birds, that prowl and fly at 
night, are frightened, if overtaken by the 



88 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

light of day, from their lairs and nests, so 
the unregenerate would be tormented and 
made perfectly miserable by the glory of 
that eternal day that shines in universal 
splendor on all the plains of the celestial 
paradise. Ye must be born again, or heaven 
can be no heaven to you. 

4. Ye must be born again, because, with- 
out regeneration you can never enter the 
kingdom of heaven. If you refuse now to 
be prepared for heaven, how can you hope 
to be admitted into the realms of glory when 
you depart out of this world? Christ has 
said, except a man be born again, he cannot 
enter the kingdom of heaven and see God. 
These are the solemn words which He has 
sworn to perform, who has the keys of the 
kingdom, and opens and no man shuts, and 
shuts and no man opens. When he shuts 
the doors of heaven against you, all earth 
and hell combined could never open them 
again for your entrance. Unless you are 
born again, he will most assuredly close for 
ever the doors of the upper kingdom against 
you. He stands now and knocks at the door 



THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 89 

of your, heart and pleads for admittance, 
that he might prepare your soul for his 
heavenly kingdom. If you now refuse him 
admittance, you will stand at his door and 
knock in vain, for he will only admit those 
to his kingdom who admit him now to their 
hearts. 

Without regeneration you can have no 
holiness, and "without holiness you cannot 
see God." The pearly gates of bliss can 
never be opened to any but the holy. Hea- 
ven is a place of holiness, and nothing but 
holiness can enter there. One unconverted 
soul would spoil heaven, should it be per- 
mitted to enter the shining gates of the new 
Jerusalem in its unregenerate state ; and God 
will never suffer the kingdom of glory and 
bliss to be spoiled by those who will not 
obey him on earth. Heaven is a holy, 
happy, and glorious place. It is happy be- 
cause it is holy, and it is glorious because it 
is holy and happy. Now the admission of 
one unconverted sinner would spoil heaven 
in all these respects. Happiness is insepa- 
rably connected with holiness. Wherever 
8* 



90 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

there is sin there will be misery. Admit 
one unregenerate sinner into heaven, and 
then the holiness of heaven would no longer 
be perfect, and consequently its happiness 
would not be absolute, and, therefore, the 
glory of the celestial would be marred. The 
entrance of one unregenerate person into 
the kingdom of glory would spoil heaven, for 
it would be the introduction of sin, and 
misery, and shame, into the holiness, happi- 
ness, and glory of the supernal world. God 
will not spoil heaven to save a soul that re- 
fuses to yield to the gentle wooings of the 
Holy Spirit and be born again. Every- 
thing there is holy. The Holy Trinity is 
there; the Holy Father, the Holy Child 
Jesus, the Holy Ghost, are there; the holy 
angels who never sinned, and the holy saints, 
who have been washed and made holy in the 
spotless righteousness of Christ, are there. 
Heaven is the home of the holy, and all the 
blessed and glorious company of the holy 
will rise up and exclude the unregenerate 
and unholy from their joyful society. 

Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a 



THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 91 

man be born again, he cannot see God. 
Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man 
be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God. Marvel not 
that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. 
If ye would live a holy life — if ye would have 
any communion w^ith God — if ye would be 
fitted for the society of heaven — if ye would 
find an entrance into the kingdom of glory — 
ye must he horn again. If ye would not be 
banished from God's presence — if ye would 
not be cast into outer darkness — if ye would 
not be hurled into the bottomless pit — if ye 
would not be damned eternally with devils, 
in adamantine chains, on beds of penal fires — - 
ye must he horn again. 



92 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE NEW BIRTH. 

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest 
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh 
and whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of 
the Spirit." — John iii. 8. 

This new birth, which is so absolutely neces- 
sary to admission into the kingdom of grace 
on earth, and into the kingdom of glory in 
heaven, is a mystery — a fact revealed and 
experienced, but not explained nor under- 
stood. We can know that it does take place, 
but how it takes place we can never tell. We 
may become experimentally acquainted with 
it, and feel its power in our own souls and 
see its effects in others, but there is much 
about it we can never comprehend. How 
the Holy Spirit operates in the sinner's heart 
at all, how he changes his nature from sin to 
holiness, and how he alters the natural dis- 
positions of his mind, and the long esta- 



THE MYSTERY OF THE NEW BIRTH. 93 

blished habits of his life, we may never be 
able to tell, but that these changes do occur 
we may know from our own experience and 
by observing what takes place in others. 
The fact that we cannot see the Spirit nor 
understand the mode of his working in the 
human heart, should be no hindrance to our 
belief in his existence and work. And this 
is requiring no greater faith in grace than 
is daily exercised in nature. We never saw 
the atmosphere, nor do we understand the 
nature of its movements, but we have felt it 
and seen its effects, and must, therefore, be- 
lieve that it exists and moves. The Saviour 
might have selected any other of the myste- 
ries of nature to illustrate the point, but he 
takes that which is, above all others, sym- 
bolic of the action of the Spirit. The atmos- 
phere is invisible, its ever varying motions 
are incomprehensible, and yet its existence 
and motions are facts recognized and admit- 
ted by everybody. Let us now notice a few 
points in which this mystery in nature, 
illustrates the mystery in grace, of which 
Jesus speaks. 



94 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

1. The atmosphere is absolutely necessary 
and indispensably essential to the existence 
of physical life. We breathe it into our 
lungs, absorb into our blood, and it pene- 
trates every pore and interstice in the human 
frame, and permeates the whole physical sys- 
tem. We are in it, and it is in us. We live 
in it, and move in it, and without it cannot 
exist. Without the atmosphere there could 
be no respirations of the lungs, the blood 
would be vitiated, and every animal, vital, 
and sensorial function would immediately 
cease its operation, and the body would in- 
stantaneously die. Now the atmosphere is 
no more essential to physical life than the 
Spirit, is to spiritual life. We live in the 
Spirit and the Spirit dw^ells in us. The Holy 
Ghost is the element in w^hich the Christian 
lives, moves, and has his spiritual being. 
Without him the functions of the Divine life 
can neither be put forth nor kept in opera- 
tion. The Spirit, breathing himself into our 
souls, enlightens the understanding, and gives 
us all our spiritual discernment of the truth 
of the gospel ; regenerates the affections, and 



THE MYSTERY OF THE NEW BIRTH. 95 

gives US all our Christian emotions and de- 
sires, and renews the will, and gives all our 
holy volitions. Without the atmospheric air 
man could not exist, and without the Holy 
Spirit the Christian could not live. 

2. Both of these agents — on one of which 
physical life depends, and on the other spi- 
ritual — are invisible. We cannot see the 
atmosphere. We perceive its existence by 
the sense of feeling, and by an induction of 
facts obtained from observing its effects. We 
feel it when it fans our own bodies. We see 
its effects when it gently waves the grass and 
agitates thp leaves of the forest, or when it 
sweeps over the land in terrific tornado, over- 
throwing fences and throwing down houses, 
bending to the earth the lofty pine, and 
breaking in pieces the sturdy oak ; we hear 
its sound, sometimes in the gentle murmur of 
the whispering zephyr, and sometimes in 
the mighty roar of the bellowing hurricane. 
Just so, we cannot see the Holy Spirit, but 
we feel his mysterious operations in our own 
hearts ; and see his effects in the changes he 
produces in the lives of others; and hear his 



96 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

voice, sometimes in the gentle wooings of his 
word and providence, and then again in the 
thunder tones of the terror of the law, or in 
the loud lamentations of the calamities of 
earth. 

3. The motions of the atmosphere on the 
earth are various and ever-changing, so are 
the operations of the Spirit in the church. 
Now there is a calm, now the gentle zephyrs 
fan our cheeks and whisper in the tree-tops, 
and now the awful tornado sweeps over the 
land, or the tempestuous gale rolls old 
ocean's billows into huge watery mountains, 
and makes them walk in awful grandeur on 
his foamy surface. And so with the Holy 
Spirit in the church. Sometimes there is a 
spiritual calm. It seems that the Spirit for 
a while suspends his operations. But few 
sinners are converted, and the church grows 
cold. The church needs a revival — an agita- 
tion in its spiritual atmosphere. But now 
the Spirit begins to breathe in gentle influ- 
ences on Zion; Christians are refreshed, sin- 
ners are silently converted, and the church 
imperceptibly grows. And, at other times, 



THE MYSTERY OF THE NEW BIRTH. 97 

the Spirit sweeps over the land in powerful 
revivals. Sinners cry out in alarm, the 
mighty of earth are brought down, and the 
proud made low ; sinners are converted by 
scores and hundreds together, and the whole 
earth is filled with awe and amazement at the 
mighty works of the Spirit. 

4. The wind bloweth where it listeth, so 
the Spirit worketh where He pleaseth. We 
have no artificial means to compel the wind 
to blow when there is a calm, nor to still 
the tempest when there is a storm. The 
calm-bound sailor must await the time of the 
wind, for he cannot blow it up by human ma- 
chinery; and the tempest-tossed vessel must 
brave the gale, for the storm cannot be stilled 
by any human invention. So the church 
cannot compel the Spirit. We can only wait 
upon God in prayer and the appointed 
means. The Spirit will go at his own will^ 
where he has his own work to do. 

We hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell 
whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So it 
is again with the Spirit. We hear of pre- 
cious revivals, but we cannot tell when they 
9 



98 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

will come to us, or where they will next ap- 
pear. We can no more forecast the opera- 
tions of the Spirit than we can the motions 
of the wind. To secure the presence of the 
Spirit and the conversion of sinners, we can 
only wait upon the Holy Ghost in prayer, 
and the use of the means that he has ap- 
pointed in the church. All human contri- 
vances, and '^machineries" to produce reli- 
gious excitements in the church, are worse 
than useless. Not those revivals that are 
''gotten up" from earth, but those that 
" come down" from heaven, are genuine and 
to be desired. 

We have said that the Saviour might have 
chosen any other of the mysteries of nature 
to illustrate bis point, but he selected the 
one he did, because it is not only illustrative 
of the nature of the new birth, but also sym- 
bolical of the particular and general work of 
the Spirit in the conversion of sinners ; but 
the great truth designed to be taught in this 
passage, is that grace is no more mysterious 
than nature. If we wilfully reject and ridi- 
cule the doctrines of religion because they 



THE MYSTERY OF THE NEW BIRTH. 99 

are mysterious, we should also, to be consist- 
ent, reject the facts of nature. A fact in 
nature, observed but not understood, is a 
mystery; and a fact in religion, revealed but 
not comprehended, is also a mystery. The 
two mysteries stand on the same level, and 
if we reject one, we should also reject the 
other. Nature is full of these mysteries, 
and we should not, therefore, be surprised to 
find them also in our holy religion. They 
do not disprove the truth of religion, but, on 
the contrary, go to show that the God of 
nature is also the God of revelation. The 
spiritual birth and life are no more mysteri- 
ous than the natural birth and life. We can- 
not tell how we began to be, nor how we live 
and have our being. We do not know how 
the heart pulsates nor how the lungs respire. 
Yet we do not doubt our own existence be- 
cause we do not know the mode of it. Then 
suppose we cannot tell how the Holy Ghost 
regenerates a sinner, or how a Christian 
lives in Christ, shall we, for that reason, re- 
ject these truths, which are facts both of ex- 
perience and revelation ? Where is the supe- 



100 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

rior philosophy, the profounder penetration, 
and the more rational discernment of that 
man, who rejects the revealed facts of reli- 
gion, because they are mysterious, while he 
believes the observed facts of nature which 
lie cannot comprehend, over the man who 
believes both the mysteries of nature and 
grace on precisely the same grounds? It is 
nowhere. The philosophy of Scepticism is 
not philosophical, and the rationalism of 
Neology is not rational. 



THE RATIONALISM OF NICODEMUS. 101 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE RATIONALISM OF NICODEMUS. 

« 

" And Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can 
these things be? — John iii. 9. 

NicoDEMUs's question indicates doubt, but 
not frivolity. It seems that he was made 
serious at this point in the Saviour's conver- 
sation, and lost his disposition to ridicule the 
Lord's teaching; but still he opposes it with 
his rationalistic scepticism. He refuses to 
believe because he cannot comprehend the 
doctrine. He proudly demands, How can 
these things he ? Unless he can see how they 
take place and exist, he will not believe that 
they exist at all. the vanity of the human 
intellect, when it assumes the high ground 
that it will believe nothing but what it can 
comprehend! The conceivable is not the 
limit of the real, and the comprehensible 
should not be made the boundary of belief. 
9* 



102 NICODEMUS WITH JESU6. 

How lit-tle of all that man is obliged to be- 
lieve, does he fully understand ! He does not 
know how the warm blood courses through his 
veins, nor how the food he eats is changed 
into blood, and then into sinews and flesh 
and bones, to support his life. He cannot 
tell how he breathes, and lives, and has his 
being. And though he cannot understand 
any of these things, yet they are facts which 
he not only does believe, but which he is 
compelled to believe. Even the superficial 
thinker must see, that this arrogant assump- 
tion will lead men into the most glaring ab- 
surdities and inextricable contradictions. If 
man thinks at all, he will be compelled to 
see that he knows nothing absolutely and to 
perfection. Around every object of his 
knowledge there hang many circumstances 
which he cannot understand. Take an illus- 
tration. The apple, loosened from its stem, 
falls to the ground. Why ? Sir Isaac New- 
ton answers, it is drawn towards the earth's 
centre by the force of gravitation. But what 
is gravitation? Newton could not tell, and 
there has not yet risen a mightier than he to 



THE RATIONALISM OF NICODEMUS. 103 

give the answer. Why does the force of gra- 
vitation draw all things towards the earth's 
centre ? The profoundest philosophy has not 
yet been, and perhaps never will be, able to 
assign the cause of this every-day-observed 
fact. Shall we deny that it is a fact, because 
we cannot understand it? Common sense 
would convict the man, who dares do so, of 
insanity, and send him to bedlam. The man 
who adopts in earnest the presumptuous posi- 
tion that he will believe nothing but what he 
can comprehend, not only divests his mind of 
all knowledge, but even strips it of all possi- 
bility of knowing anything, and w^ill lose 
himself in eternal night in the interminable 
intricacies and windings of the labyrinth of a 
bleak and universal scepticism. Does vain 
man suppose that there is nothing beyond the 
comprehension of his own little short-sighted 
intellect? Shall a proud mortal in the pre- 
sence of the Divine Teacher, or with his writ- 
ten w^ord in his hand, adopt the motto of the 
heathen sophist, Protagoras — '' Man the mea- 
sure of all things" — and circumscribe the 
infinite Grod, and all his mighty works of 



104 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

nature and grace, within the range of his 
own contracted powers of understanding? 
This is the length to which he goes, who asks, 
in the spirit of Nicodemus, how can these 
things he? It is intolerable arrogance for a 
creature, whose senses are confined to a 
point, who cannot tell how he lives, nor how 
the world in which he lives sprung into ex- 
istence, and became adorned and beautified 
with all the teeming millions which fill its 
bowels and diversify its surface, to ask, of the 
revelations of God's Son, how can these things 
he? It is a provoking presumption in a worm, 
who cannot tell how creation was evoked 
from emptiness, and how the silence and soli- 
tude of vacancy were broken up by the songs 
of angels and the morning stars bursting into 
light, to talk of believing nothing but that 
of which he can grasp the heighth and depth, 
the length and breadth, and comprehend in his 
own mental powers, cramped and confined, 
as he is obliged to see they are, on every 
side by weakness and limitations. And this 
is precisely the arrogant presumption of Ni- 
codemus, and all the modern neologists, who 
demand an explanation of how these things 



THE RATIONALISM OF NICODEMUS. 105 

can be, before they will believe that they can 
be at all. 

But Nicodemus acted in this case just like 
the sinner usually acts in similar circum- 
stances. When the matter of the new birth 
was first brought to his personal attention, 
he began to ridicule and sport with the doc- 
trine; but when the necessity of it was 
pressed home upon him, with tenderness and 
earnestness and deep solemnity, he becomes 
serious and loses his disposition to laugh, but 
begins to find difficulties in, and to make 
objections to, the doctrine as something that 
is incomprehensible and even impossible. 
This comes from the craftiness of Satan. If 
he cannot destroy the soul by stirring up 
within it a spirit of levity, he tries what can 
be done by raising within the mind difficul- 
ties and doubts. If he cannot induce men 
to laugh themselves to hell, he tries to make 
them doubt themselves away from heaven. 
When he cannot get men to come directly to 
him through frivolity of life, he knows that, 
if he can but induce them to stand still in the 
pride and vanity of their intellects, and re- 



106 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

fuse to be born again, because they cannot 
see how the new birth can take place, he will 
be sure to get them after awhile; for, when 
Christ is entirely gone from them, he will 
come up boldly to seize them. He is more 
afraid of the Bible than of all other books 
together, and he knows that, if he can get 
men to ridicule that holy book, and to doubt 
the words of Jesus, he will have the way clear 
for great progress in the world. Because he 
knows the mighty influence of doubt and un- 
certainty in divine things to increase the 
immorality and misery of the human family, 
the father of lies and sophistry has sent 
the spirit of rationalism abroad into the 
world, as his mightiest weapon, in these 
latter days, for the destruction of souls. 
''It has,'' says one, ''laid its reckless hands 
on the temple of orthodoxy, and would drag 
its pillars to the ground. It has infected the 
schools of philosophy, and corrupted the 
purity of theology. It has filled the philo- 
sopher with a lofty conceit of his own 
wisdom, and degraded the Bible in the esti- 
mation of the theologian. It has ascended 



THE RATIONALISM OF NICODEMUS. 107 

the pulpit, and preached blaspheming non- 
sense in the house of God. It has stood in 
the presence of a crucified Saviour and 
poured derision on his dying love. In the 
garb of the gospel, it has denied the very 
essence of the gospel. It has seized the 
public press and scattered its poisonous sen- 
timents in all directions, that it may unsettle 
the faith of the believer, and plunge the 
weak and wavering into depths of a con- 
firmed and hopeless infidelity." It is all the 
more destructive, because it is an insidious 
and seductive temptation that appeals to the 
pride of man. Satan comes with it, appeal- 
ing insidiously to the pride of the heart, as 
he did with the forbidden fruit to our first 
parents in Paradise — saying, eat of this, and 
you shall become as gods, and know all 
things. And when the man eats, and fails 
to know all things, he is so deluded that he 
will not believe that there is anything be- 
yond the ken of his knowledge. Proud 
man! Deluded mortal! When he cannot 
grasp the universe within his mind, he would 
trim it down to the dimensions of his own 



108 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

narrow comprehension ! Because he cannot 
see everything, he would shut himself up 
within a house of his own making, and then 
deny that there is anything outside of the 
walls within which he had confined himself. 

The spirit of rationalism is not confined to 
the schools of neological philosophy, — it is 
natural to the human heart. Not only the 
Strausses of Germany, the Newmans of Eng- 
land, and the Emersons of America, but 
multitudes of the ignorant and unlearned in 
pJl nations and ages are unconsciously 
iiifbued with the spirit of rationalism. Ka- 
tionalism in religion is simply opposition to 
supernaturalism, and this opposition is found 
in the clown as well as in the philosopher. 
True religion stands midway between ra- 
tionalism on one side, and superstition on 
the other, and all men, except the few whose 
imagina^tions are tamed by a sound philoso- 
phy, and whose hearts are subdued by Divine 
grace, run into one or the other of these 
extremes. 

We should not ask, liow can these things 
he ? but, are they so f And provided they do 
not contradict reason, though they may be 



THE RATIONALISM OF NICODEMUS. 109 

above its comprehension, it should be enough 
for us to know, that a Teacher sent from 
God has said that they are so. We should 
receive them simply on his testimony, for 
God vouches for his veracity, and the infalli- 
bility of his doctrines, in sending him as a 
teacher to earth. What a God-sent teacher 
proclaims is the word of God, and the naked 
word of God, should be sufficient to command 
our faith. Nicodemus came to Jesus, ac- 
knowledging him to be a Teacher sent from 
God, and logical consistency required him to 
receive his words as the truth, though the 
truth contained in them might be above his 
comprehension. Though he could not under- 
stand the mode of the existence of the truths 
taught, he should have received them as 
facts on the testimony of Jesus, whom he 
professed to recognize as a Divine teacher. 
But he sets up his own puny reason as the 
criterion of Divine truth, and will not believe, 
because he cannot understand how these 
things can be. the vanity of proud mor- 
tals ! But let us see what the Lord says in 
reply. 

10 



110 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTER X. 

NICODEMUS'S IGNORANCE REPROVED. 

" Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a teacher 
in Israel, and knowest not these things." — John iii. 10. 

Having expelled all frivolity from his heart 
and put an end to his ridicule, by the 
serious earnestness of his manner, and the 
sublime importance of his doctrine, our Lord 
next proceeds to reply to the unbelief of 
Nicodemus; and, in the first place, he re- 
proves him for his ignorance. "Art thou a 
teacher in Israel, and knowest not these 
things :' The doctrine of the new birth, as 
we have already shown, is distinctly and 
abundantly taught in the Old Testament, of 
which Nicodemus professed to be a public 
expositor and teacher; and if, therefore, he 
had been even intellectually qualified for the 
oflSce which he presumed to fill, the new 



IGNORANCE REPROVED. Ill 

birth would not have been a novel and 
strange idea to his mind. It is plain that he 
did not even understand the letter, much 
less the spirit, of the Sacred Book, which he 
pretended to expound to others. If the 
blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the 
ditch together. While Israel had such blind 
teachers as Nicodemus, we cannot wonder at 
the ignorance of the people. If the teachers 
did not understand, even intellectually, the 
theory of the new birth, how could they 
teach its necessity and spiritual significance 
to the people? If the teachers were igno- 
rant of this fundamental doctrine, how could 
we expect the people to be anything but a 
blind and perverse nation? As their best 
and most enlightened teachers, which class 
Nicodemus most certainly represented, were 
so utterly ignorant of the very elements of 
the gospel, there was the greatest need that 
Christ should come as the Divine Teacher to 
instruct the people in the way of light and 
life. 

Nicodemus's profound ignorance of the 
spirit of religion is apparent from another 



112 nicodemus with jesus. 

fact. As a teacher in Israel he must have 
been familiar with the practice of the bap- 
tism of proselytes, and he could not have 
understood the spiritual idea of that baptism 
without becoming acquainted with the doc- 
trine of the regeneration of the soul. That 
was an external baptism of water by man, 
symbolizing an internal baptism of fire by 
the Spirit. Nicodemus stopped with the 
sign, and never penetrated to the more es- 
sential thing signified in it. He was on this 
point about as ignorant as many teachers of 
the present day, who teach the human- 
invented doctrine of baptismal regeneration, 
Christ had previously condemned his igno- 
rance in this point, when he told him, except 
a man be born of the Spirit as well as of 
water, he cannot enter the kingdom of 
heaven. If a man is satisfied with the out- 
ward sign, he can never be saved. He had 
as well suppose that he is rich when he gets 
the casket without the jewel, as to suppose 
that he is prepared for heaven, when he re- 
ceives the external baptism of water without 
the internal baptism of the Spirit. He 



IGNORANCE REPROVED. 113 

who supposes that the external rite of bap- 
tism is all that is necessary to prepare for 
communion with God and fellowship with 
heaven, is no more fit to be a teacher in the 
church than a blind man is to be a guide in 
the wilderness. The regeneration of the 
soul is the vital doctrine of religion, and the 
man, who is not acquainted with it, is 
utterly unqualified to be a teacher in Israel. 
What most of all wholly and utterly dis- 
qualified Nicodemus for the office which he 
pretended to fill was the fact, that he was 
not only theoretically ignorant of the doc- 
trine of the new birth, but he had no experi- 
mental acquaintance with it. He had not 
himself entered into the kingdom of God, 
and how could he conduct others into it? 
A teacher in religion, who is intellectually 
ignorant of the doctrine of regeneration, is 
bad enough, but one that is spiritually a 
stranger to it is ten-fold worse. The man 
who sets himself up as a teacher in Israel, 
and pretends to preach the way of life, and 
at the same time denies the necessity of the 
new birth, and scouts at the idea as some- 
10* 



114 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

thing that is absurd and impossible, is an 
emissary of Satan in the camp of Immanuel. 
He who teaches that the baptism of water is 
all that is meant by regeneration, and that 
this external baptism, together with the re- 
formation of the conduct, is all that is re- 
quired to fit one for the kingdom of God, is 
no better, nor more worthy of confidence as 
a religious teacher. Such teachers will not 
enter the kingdom themselves, and they 
stand in the door to keep others out. This 
is the first, the important, and the life doc- 
trine of religion ; and he who is ignorant of 
it is utterly incompetent to instruct in holy 
things. Can he, who has never seen the 
light, speak of the glory of day, or discourse 
of the beauty of colors? No more can he, 
who is himself unregenerate, teach religion, 
or discourse of the beauty of holiness. Can 
he, who knows not the way, give directions 
to the traveller? No more can the unre- 
generate teach sinners the way of life. 
Nicodemus was altogether incompetent for 
the high office which he presumed to fill, be- 
cause he was intellectually ignorant of the 



i 



IGNORANCE REPROVED. 115 

Scriptures he pretended to expound, and 
had never experienced in his heart the re- 
generating grace of the Spirit, which is 
essentially necessary to qualify one to teach 
in Israel, 

How many Nicodemuses have we in the 
pulpit at this day! Men proud of their 
talents and vain of their learning, and yet 
experimentally unacquainted with the very 
first elements of religion! Men as unfit to 
teach religion, and preach the gospel, as the 
clown, who has not learned his alphabet, is 
unfit to teach a grammar-school! If they 
do not belch out shocking blasphemies into 
the face of heaven, they babble nonsense 
from the sacred desk. They may entertain 
their hearers with learned disquisitions in 
philosophy, or sublime discourses on astron- 
omy, or smooth and flowery discussions of 
morals, but they cannot preach the gospel, 
simply because they have not yet learned 
the very alphabet of religion. 



116 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

IS-ICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF REPROVED. 

" Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do 
know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive 
not our witness/* — John iii. 11. 

After reproving Nicodemus for his igno- 
rance, the Lord reproves him for his un- 
belief. This reproof was deserved, because 
there was the best and most sufficient evi- 
dence for a foundation to faith. In order to 
appreciate this evidence, we must inquire, 
who are the WE, who speak what they do 
know, and testify what they have seen. On 
this point we find quite a variety of opinions 
among commentators. Some suppose that 
the plural is used here rhetorically for the 
singular; Alford thinks that it is a pro- 
verbial expression, and means only the Lord ; 
Stier is of the opinion that it includes the 
three persons in the Holy Trinity; Bengel 



NICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF REPROVED. 117 

understands it to mean Christ and the Holy 
Spirit; Knap thinks the Saviour refers to 
himself and John the Baptist, whom Nico- 
demus had heard; and Calvin, Beza, and 
Tholuck suppose that Christ means himself 
and all the prophets. We agree with the 
latter view. The persons designated by the 
WE, include all the teachers sent from God, 
to which class Nicodemus had confessed that 
Jesus belonged. Their testimony is worthy 
of all confidence, because God is their 
voucher. God chooses and sends into this 
world teachers, and in the miracles which he 
performs at their call, he attests the truth of 
their doctrine. The words of a teacher sent 
from God should be believed, not because 
they are his words, but because they are 
God's words, spoken through the mouth of 
the divinely inspired teacher. We should 
receive the declarations of such teachers, 
whether we can understand them or not, be- 
cause they are the words of God, and his 
thoughts are as much above our thoughts 
as the heavens are higher than the earth. 
We should, for the very reason that the 



118 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

Scriptures are the word of God, expect to 
find in them many things mysterious and 
incomprehensible, but these mysteries should 
not hinder us from receiving the testimony 
of the inspired teachers, who speak what 
they do know, and testify what they have 
seen. 

The true nature of faith is here intimated. 
It is not knowledge from experience or de- 
monstration, but a conviction resting on the 
testimony of others. There are three ra- 
tional and logical sources of knowledge — 
perception, demonstration, and faith. Of 
these three, faith gives us most of pur infor- . 
mation, for we have, by far, the larger part 
of our knowledge through the testimony of 
others rather than by the perceptions of our 
own minds or the demonstrations of our own 
reasons. The knowledge of faith exists in all 
degrees, from mere suspicion, through every 
degree of probability, up to undoubted cer- 
tainty. The degree of assurance we have in 
our faith, depends on the amount and charac- 
ter of the testimony on which it rests. The 
word of a man of doubtful veracity is enough 



NICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF REPROVED. 119 

to create suspicion, the assertion of a single 
man of truth will give us probability, and the 
combined testimony of many of undoubted 
veracity will give us such a foundation for 
belief, that their words cannot be rejected or 
gainsayed. Now on this principle there is 
the broadest and firmest foundation for Chris- 
tian faith. We are not required to believe 
on the testimony of any single individual, 
but on the testimony of many of the most 
undoubted veracity, who lived at great dis- 
tances from each other both in time and 
place, between whom collusion was impossi- 
sible, and in whose testimony there are no 
contradictions nor real discrepancies. They 
were men of the purest morals and holiest 
lives ; and most of them sealed their testi- 
mony with their blood. And what is more 
than all this, they were inspired teachers 
sent from God, and in the manifestations of 
his omnipotence through them, in the mira- 
cles wrought at their words, God presented 
himself as a witness, and became the voucher 
for the truth of their doctrines. So the ulti- 
mate foundation of Christian faith is, not the 



120 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

testimony of a great number of the best and 
holiest of men, but the testimony of God 
himself. For the inspired teachers only 
spoke the words of God as God revealed 
them. 

The teachers sent from God, on whose 
words we are to receive the gospel and to be- 
lieve in Christ, are not doubtful witnesses, 
who gave merely conjectural testimony, but 
they were men confidently assured of the 
truth of what they spoke. " We speak that 
we do know, and testify that we have seen/' 
They were assured, by their own internal 
consciousness, that God spoke to them the 
words that they uttered as his oracles. We 
may not be a^ble to tell how these men knew 
that they were inspired, but we cannot tell 
how men know anything. We may know 
how impressions are made on the physical 
senses, but the most delicate analysis of phy- 
siology, and the keenest acumen of philoso- 
phy, have not been able to tell how these 
impressions are conveyed to the inner man, 
or how the mind, through them, becomes 
cognizant of external things. So men, in- 



NICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF REPROVED. 121 

spired by the Holy Spirit to know the 
thoughts of Grod and to teach them to men, 
may be conscious of the fact of their inspira- 
tion, without being able to tell how they are 
inspired. At any rate, it is a fact that the 
inspired penmen, on whose declarations we 
are to receive the doctrines of revelation, 
were conscious that they knew the thoughts 
of God, and they spoke only what they knew 
to be mind of the Eternal, And as to the 
historical facts which they recorded, they 
testified only to what they had seen, either 
in natural sight, or in the vision of prophecy. 
One could not reasonably ask, nor possibly 
have, better evidence than that on which 
Nicodemus was required to believe. If the 
testimony which they had could not convince 
them, no other could; and Nicodemus, and 
the other Pharisaic rulers, who would not 
receive it, were inexcusable in their unbelief, 
because it was most unquestionably sufiicient 
to be the broadest and firmest foundation for 
the faith required. 

Applying the words, ''we speak that we 
do know, and testify that we have seen/* to 
11 



122 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

the mystery of the new birth, which was the 
immediate subject of conversation, and in 
regard to which Nicodemus was expressing 
his doubts, they have another meaning. 
They, then, mean that they spoke of a 
change which they knew by personal expe- 
rience in their own hearts, and testified to a 
fact which they had witnessed in others. 
All those teachers, prophets, apostles, and 
preachers, who were sent from Christ, were 
regenerated men. This great change of 
heart and life is an essential and indispensa- 
ble qualification to fit one to be a teacher 
with Jesus, and all those who were sent out 
by him before his incarnation, or that have 
been sent out since, to proclaim the doctrines 
of religion and to teach the mystery of re- 
generation, speak what they know by their 
own internal experience, and testify what 
they have witnessed in the cases of others 
converted under their observation. This 
was an additional reason why their testimony 
should be received, and a farther rebuke to 
Nicodemus's unbelief. This fact also con- 
trasted Nicodemus and the Jewish teachers, 



NICODEMUS'S UNBELIEF REPROVED. 123 

whom he represented, in a very unfavorable 
point with the true teachers of religion. 
It showed that the former were destitute of 
an essential qualification that must be found 
in all worthy teachers of religion. The 
destitution of regenerating grace was the 
secret of their unbelief, and the real cause 
why they would not receive the testimony of 
Jesus and his disciples. They were carnal, 
and could not receive the things of the 
Spirit. They rejected the gospel because it 
condemned their lives. Their depravity was 
the cause of their unbelief, and their unbelief 
was the source of their transgressions. 

Human nature is the same to-day that it 
was in Nicodemus's day. Men act now just 
as these rejecters of the gospel acted then, 
and are still influenced by the same causes. 
The gospel condemns their wickedness and 
requires a change of life, and, for that very 
reason, they will not believe it; and because 
they will not believe it, they go on in trans- 
gressions, from iniquity to iniquity. Men 
now reject the doctrine of spiritual regenera- 
tion, because they know thatj if it is true, 



124 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

tliey are not in the way to the kingdom of 
heaven. They say, ''it is a mystery, and we 
cannot believe it; it is an impossibility, and 
we will not receive it.'' They thus attempt 
to persuade themselves that the new birth is 
something that is impossible, or, at least, un- 
necessary, because they are unwilling to 
admit that they are wrong, and to commence 
their lives anew with this confession, and by 
seeking the regeneration of the Spirit. 

But men must not only admit the regene- 
ration of the soul as a doctrine, but also ex- 
perience it as a reality in their own hearts, 
or they will be forever lost. Except ye are 
born again, ye cannot enter into the king- 
dom of God. Woe to the teacher who 
preaches against this doctrine I Woe to the 
hearers that are blindly led by such blind 
teachers! Beware that ye reject not the 
testimony of Jesus and his teachers, and re- 
ceive the words of unregenerate men for 
gospel doctrine, and thus lose, through un- 
belief, your immortal souisa 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY THINGS. 125 



CHAPTEE XII, 

THE EAUTHLY AND HEAVENLY THINGS. 

•"^If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, 
how shall ye believe if i tell you of heavenly things?" 
John iii. 12. 

After reproving the ignorance and unbelief 
of Nicodemus, the Saviour begins to prepare 
his mind for the reception of more mysterious 
and more sublime truths than any he had yet 
revealed. He had only spoken to him of 
earthly things, but he was now about to 
speak to him of the heavenly things con- 
nected with regeneration; and if Nicodemus 
refused faith in things terrene in their 
nature, how could he believe in things al- 
together celestial? But notwithstanding his 
unbelief in what he had already heard, the 
Lord proceeds to make known to him the 
higher mysteries of the Christian religion, 
because it was necessary to speak of the 
11* 



126 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

heavenly things in order to explain the 
earthly. 

What are the earthly things which he had 
told Nicodemus, and what are the heavenly 
things of which he is about to speak ? The 
commonly received opinion is, that by the 
earthly things is meant the natural mystery 
of the wind, and, by the heavenly things is 
meant the spiritual mystery of regeneration 
by the Spirit, which is illustrated by the 
phenomena of the atmosphere and its mo- 
tions. According to this interpretation the 
idea is, that there is as much mystery in nature 
as in grace, and as good a foundation for 
faith in the one class of mysteries as there is 
for belief in the other. If Nicodemus believes 
that the wind blows, though he cannot tell 
whence it cometh and whither it goeth, he 
should believe also the heavenly mysteries 
which the Saviour reveals, notwithstanding 
they are incomprehensible in many points. 
For instance, he should believe that the Holy 
Spirit can, and does, regenerate the human 
heart, even though he is not able to tell how 
the Spirit performs this mysterious work. 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY THINGS. 127 

We have just as good reason to believe the 
heavenly things — the doctrines of grace — as 
Tve have to believe the earthly things — the 
facts of nature. This is true, but it is not 
the truth taught in this passage of Scripture, 
though it is a truth, clearly and abundantly 
taught elsewhere. If Christ had referred to 
the parable of the wind in the earthly things, 
he would not have said, ye believe notj but I 
have told you earthly things, and ye under- 
stand not. 

The whole passage will be clear and easily 
understood, when we notice that the earthly 
things are the doctrines which the Saviour 
had taught up to this point in his conversa- 
tion, and the heavenly things are those higher 
doctrines of grace, which he now proceeds to 
reveal. He has yet spoken only of the 
earthly side of regeneration, and Nicodemus 
does not believe; how shall he believe, if the 
Lord should speak to him of its heavenly 
side, which he must do, if he tells him how 
those things are possible with God, which 
seem to be impossible with men. Faith is 
belief on testimony, and the earthly side of 



128 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

regeneration is experienced by man, and man 
may, therefore, testify to its truth; but the 
heavenly side of it can only be known as it 
is revealed from heaven. Now if Nicodemus 
will not believe the words of the Saviour, 
which can be confirmed by the experience of 
mortals on earth, it is not to be expected 
that he will give any credence to his words 
when he speaks of those higher mysteries of 
religion, which no mortal has seen or can 
see. The earthly things are the operations 
of the Spirit in the hearts of men on earth. 
The effect of these operations is visible to 
mortal eyes, and the operations themselves 
are matters of consciousness in the experi- 
ence of men. They are called earthly, be- 
cause they pertain to this mundane existence, 
and must be experienced, if experienced at 
all, in this life and in this world. But there 
are other mysteries connected with the new 
birth which are far removed from human 
view, and which can never be subjected to 
mortal vision, nor realized in mortal con- 
sciousness. These more profound and in- 
scrutable mysteries pertaining to the redemp- 
tion of fallen man are the heavenly things of 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY THINGS. 129 

which Jesus is about to speak. Now, if 
Nicodemus would not believe the terrestrial 
part of the new birth, which might be, and 
actually was, confirmed by the testimony of 
those mortals who had experienced it, there 
was but little probability that he would be- 
lieve those sublimer mysteries composing its 
heavenly side, which no mortal had seen or 
could see. Nicodemus asks, when the earthly 
side of religion was presented to him, " How 
can these things be?'' The Lord forewarns 
him that he will not believe, if he should turn 
to him its heavenly side, which he must do 
in order to explain its earthly side, and to 
answer his sceptical question. Christ had, 
up to this point in the conversation, only 
taught him the first rudiments of the gospel, 
and as he would not believe these first prin- 
ciples, there was but little hope that he would 
give any credence to the celestial mysteries 
of the council of eternity, in which the sal- 
vation of man was made possible. But as 
he had asked, the Lord proceeds to explain 
to him how God bad made it possible to save 
fallen and sinful man in consistency with his 
justice. 



130 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTER XIII, 



THE INCARNATION. 



'^And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that 
came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which 
is in heaven." — John iii. 13. 

The Lord now begins to speak to Nicoderaus 
of the heavenly things — those higher myste- 
ries, which were determined upon in the 
council of the Triune from all eternity, and 
which are necessary to render the salvation 
of fallen man possible. The first one of these 
great mysteries is the incarnation of the 
Eternal Son. This is the corner-stone in 
the edifice of the divine scheme of salvation. 
In order to save fallen man, it is necessary 
that he should have a Saviour, who is both 
human and Divine in the same person. Let 
us first see wherein this necessity consists, 
and then we will find that Jesus is just such 
a Saviour as man needs. 



THE INCARNATION. 131 

Man is a sinner, and sin in its nature de- 
serves punishment. Justice, in its inflexible 
nature, demands that sin shall be punished, 
and even God himself cannot pardon sin,, in 
consistency with his immutable justice, until 
its penalty is paid. Sin, in its inherent ill- 
desert, merits punishment, and is absolutely 
unpardonable until its deserved penalty is 
suffered either by the sinner himself, or by a 
competent and accepted substitute in his 
stead. Now, where can this competent sub- 
stitute be found? Not among the sons of 
Adam, for all his race are sinners, and each 
needs the atonement for himself. There is 
not one exempt from the penalty so that 
he could make atonement for his brethren. 
An angel cannot be our atoning substitute, 
for angels do not have a community of na- 
ture with us, and as the sin was committed 
in the flesh, the atonement must be made in 
the flesh. But suppose an angel could as- 
sume our nature, or that there could be 
found one, among all the descendants of 
Adam, that is perfectly free from sin ; neither 
one of these could be a competent substitute 



132 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

to make atonement for the human race; be- 
cause the sin of the race is against a God of 
infinite purity, and the substitute, that ren- 
ders satisfaction, must have infinite dignity 
of character. The sufferings of no mere 
creature can satisfy the demands of the law 
and redeem man from its curse. He who 
redeems man from the curse of sin, must be 
infinite in being, attributes, and dignity of 
character, in order to give infinite worth to 
his sufferings, that they might redeem from 
the penalty of sin ; and he must be at the same 
time human, in order that he might, by his 
sufferings, pay the penalty which the human 
race owes. The Saviour of Adam's race 
must be man, that he may obey and suffer, 
as the substitute of man ; and he must be God, 
that his obedience and sufferings may have 
infinite worth and be suflBcient to redeem 
man from the curse and death of God's vio- 
lated law. Now Jesus, and Jesus alone, 
combines this dual nature in one person. 
He is God, incarnate in human flesh, and en- 
dowed with a human soul. He is God and 
man in one person. He, and he alone, is 



THE INCARNATION. 138 

competent to redeem man from the curse of 
the law, and to reconcile his offended Maker 
to rebellious man. In the passage before us 
the Lord reveals the mystery of his incarna- 
tion to Nicodemus as the first, and most im- 
portant, of those heavenly things, to which 
reference was made in the preceding chapter. 
When Jesus says no man hath ascended to 
heaven^ we do not understand him to mean 
that no mortal had gone up to the skies to 
live with God. Enoch and Elijah had as- 
cended with their bodies, and were then liv- 
ing bodily in the presence of their God in 
the skies; and the souls of all the just, who 
have departed from earth, are now in heaven 
rejoicing with the angels. The ascension 
and descension here spoken of, refer to a 
profounder mystery than that of the immor- 
tality of the soul or the resurrection of the 
body. They relate to the incarnation of the 
Deity, which only took place in the person 
of Christ, In him heaven and earth meet, 
and the Divine and the human are united in 
one mysterious person. No man hath ascend- 
ed to heaven^ hut he that came doivn from 
12 



134 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

heaven. The Incarnation is not earth as- 
cending to heaven, but heaven coming down 
to earth; it is not man becoming God, but 
God becoming man. The finite cannot exalt 
itself into the Infinite, but the Infinite may 
descend into the finite. The incarnation of 
Jesus is not his humanity rising up to his 
Divinity, but his Divinity stooping down to 
his humanity. 

This mysterious person, who descended 
from heaven to earth, that earth, through 
him, might ascend to heaven, did not cease 
to be Divine, when he became human; for he 
is even the Son of man which is in heaven. 
As he is the Son of man^ he is truly man, 
and as he is in heaven^ he is truly God. He 
is man in God. It also means that the 
Divine nature of the blessed Saviour is not 
contained in his human, but that his human 
nature lives in his divine. We do not mean 
that his human nature is absorbed, or swal- 
lowed up, in his divine; — his two natures are 
kept distinct from each other, but his human 
personality is swallowed up in his Divine 
personality, and becomes one with it. In the 



THE INCARNATION. 135 

Incarnate Saviour, there are two distinct 
natures, and only one person, in the same 
mysterious being. As man, when speaking 
with Nicodemus, he was on earth, but as 
God, he is always in heaven, and fills all im- 
mensity with his Divine omnipresence. As 
human he was of time, but as God he is 
eternal. 

Now this Jesus, with his dual nature and 
single person, is competent to be the atoning 
substitute of fallen man, and to redeem him 
from the curse of the law and the penalty of 
sin. As man, he can obey and suffer in the 
stead of man, and because he is God, his suf- 
ferings have infinite merit, and satisfy the 
demands of Jehovah's violated law. 

It is necessary that Jesus be both Divine 
and human to fit him to instruct men in 
those things that are altogether heavenly in 
their nature, as well as to qualify him to be 
the Redeemer of lost sinners. It needs a 
teacher, like Jesus, who is in heaven and on 
earth at the same time, to speak to the in- 
habitants of this lower world of those thino-s 
that belong exclusively to the supernal world. 



136 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

The great teacher, who declares the eternal 
mysteries of the upper world to those living 
on earth, must be God, in order to know the 
thoughts of the Divine Mind, and must be 
man in order to communicate them to mor- 
tals. And Jesus, the Saviour of Adam's 
fallen race, and the great Teacher of men in 
both earthly and heavenly things of religion, 
is the Light and Life of this dark and dead 
world, because he is both God and man in 
one mysterious and adorable person. 



I 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 137 



CHAPTER XIY. 

THE CRUCIFIXION. 

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, 
even so must the Son of man be lifted up" — John iii. 14. 

The great end of the incarnation of the Sa- 
viour was to render his crucifixion possible, 
and the crucifixion of Jesus as our atoning 
substitute, is the second great mystery in 
the plan of our salvation, which the Lord 
explained to Nicodemus, as being one of those 
heavenly things to believe which would re- 
quire a stronger faith than he had. This 
doctrine is taught in the old Testament, but 
it is there veiled under the shadows of types 
and symbols. If the Jews had not lost sight 
of the spiritual significance of the ceremonies 
of the Mosaic law, the crucifixion of Jesus 
would not have been a new and strange doc- 
trine to them. 

The Lord begins to speak of the mystery 
12* 



138 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

of his crucifixion by reference to one of the 
most striking and beautiful types, which fore- 
told and illustrated it in the old dispensation. 
He has a double purpose in this. The time 
had not yet come, when it would be proper 
to speak of this mystery plainly and without 
parable. For wise reasons the Saviour never 
spoke plainly of his death and crucifixion 
until towards the close of his ministry, when 
that sad and mysterious event drew near. 
He also chose to refer to an Old Testament 
type, as illustrative of it, to convince Nico- 
demus that it was not a new doctrine, now 
for the first time revealed to man, but that 
it is taught in that very law of which he pre- 
tended to be an expounder, and to show 
him that he is culpable for being ignorant 
of it. 

Some do not see in the brazen serpent of 
Moses a type of Jesus, but such seem to us 
to be no better acquainted with the true 
meaning of that wonderful miracle in the 
wilderness than was Nicodemus. Assuming 
that this serpent was a type of the Saviour, 
as the great mass of commentators and 



i 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 139 

common readers of the Bible now regard it, 
the question arises, in what respects did it 
symbolize him? The history of the brazen 
serpent is given by Moses in Numbers xxi. 
8, 9. The people were bitten by flying 
fiery serpents, and there was no cure for the 
bite; and Moses was directed to make a 
brazen image of the serpent, and put it on a 
pole in the midst of the camp, and whoever 
looked upon it was healed of the bite. The 
serpent that Moses lifted up was not a real 
serpent, but only an image of it, and this is 
a fact that has an important bearing upon its 
typical significance. The real and living 
serpent was symbolic of sin, and the poison 
of its bite in the body illustrates the de- 
moralizing and deadening eifects of sin in 
the soul. The bite of these serpents was in- 
curable by medicinal arts or any other na- 
tural means, so the moral depravity of sin is 
irremediable by any human contrivance. 
These are the points of similarity between 
the real serpent and its poison in the body, 
and sin and its efi*ects upon the soul. We 
are next to trace the resemblance between 



140 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

the cures. The real serpent was symbolic of 
sin, and the brazen image of the serpent was 
the type of Jesus. 

1. The brazen serpent was only an image 
of the living serpent that did the harm. It 
was in the exact form of it, but it had no 
poison or harm in it. Now Christ, who was 
made sin for us, knew no sin, (2 Cor. v. 21.) 
He was made in the image of sin, and suf- 
fered its penalty, yet he knew no sin, for he 
was perfectly and eternally holy and abso- 
lutely harmless. When we say that Christ, 
who was eternally and absolutely sinless, was 
made the image of sin, we mean that he suffered 
its penalty just as if he had been a sinner. 
The brazen serpent was not a type of his in- 
carnation, except so far as that was a part of 
the penalty of sin. The image of sin in 
Christ consisted in his humiliation and suf- 
ferings, his crucifixion and death, and in his 
being dead and buried, just as if he had been 
the incarnation of sin, though he was holy, 
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sin- 
ners. The brazen serpent was not a serpent, 
but only an exact image of it, so Jesus was 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 141 

not a real sinner, but he was made an exact 
image of sin, when he suffered its full penalty 
in the stead of real sinners, 

2. The chief point of resemblance between 
the brazen serpent and the Saviour is found 
in its exaltation, and this was typical of the 
triple exaltation of Jesus, — in his crucifixion, 
his ascension, and his gospel. As it was 
necessary that the brazen serpent should be 
lifted up in Israel's camp for the cure of the 
bite of the fiery serpent, so it was necessary 
that Christ should be lifted up for the cure 
of the sting of sin. It was necessary that 
Christ should be lifted up on the cross, if he 
would redeem fallen man. He must be 
nailed to the cross to complete the work 
which he had begun in his incarnation. He 
came into this world to pay the penalty of 
sin, and it was on the cross of Calvary that 
he paid the last iota of the debt of the law, 
which enabled him to die with the triumphant 
shout, ''It is finished." The crucifixion was 
a victory over sin, and the cross an exalta- 
tion to the Saviour, for when he died upon it 
he triumphed over sin and nailed it to the 



142 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

tree. When he died in his crucifixion he 
paid the full penalty of sin, and redeemed 
the world from its curse; for, in that sub- 
lime and mysterious transaction the gates of 
hell were shut, and the doors of heaven were 
opened to all who will believe in him. 

The cross was only the beginning of the 
Saviour's exaltation, which was perfected in 
his glorious ascension to the skies. In his 
ascension he demonstrated to angels and to 
men, that his triumph over sin was complete 
and eternal, and that, though he was made 
in the image of sin, there was no sin found 
in him. He has been lifted up to heaven, 
where he now sits in glory unapproachable, 
at the right hand of his Father, to dispense 
life and blessings to all who come to him by 
faith in the merits of his crucifixion. We 
are to look to him, by the eye of faith, to be 
healed of the sting of sin. 

And Jesus, in his preached gospel, has 
another kind of exaltation in the world. 
The sum and substance of the gospel is Jesus 
Christ and him crucified, and wherever this 
gospel is preached, Christ is lifted up as the 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 143 

only hope and Saviour of sinners. The 
brazen serpent was exalted in the midst of 
the camp, that all might see it, and look and 
be healed; so Christ is exalted in the world 
in his preached gospel, so that all sinners 
might turn to him the eye of faith and be 
saved. 

3. A look at the brazen serpent was the 
only cure for the bite of the fiery serpents 
in Israel's camp, so the look of faith at the 
Lord Jesus Christ, is the only cure for the 
poison of sin. No medicinal arts could save 
the life of a person bitten by one of those 
flying serpents, but one look at the serpent 
of brass, exalted on the pole in the midst of 
the camp, would bring immediate relief and 
perfect cure; so no human works or contriv- 
ance can heal the disease of sin and save the 
soul, but one look, with the eye of faith, on 
the exalted and crucified Saviour, will give 
immediate peace to the soul and bring it to 
life eternal. If ye would live, ye must look 
to the crucified Saviour, ''who, being in the 
form of God, thought it not robbery to be 
equal with God: but made himself of no 



144 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

reputation, and took upon himself the form 
of a servant, and was made in the likeness 
of men; and being found in fashion as a 
man, he humbled himself, and became obedi- 
ent unto death, even the death of the cross. 
Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, 
and given him a name which is above every 
name: that at the name of Jesus every knee A 
should bow, of things in heaven, and things ' 
in earth, and things under the earth : and 
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ 
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 
(Philipp. ii. 6—11.) 

There was a necessity for the crucifixion 
and consequent exaltation of Jesus. "Even 
so must the Son of man be lifted up." This 
necessity was not absolute, but relative. 
Man could not have been saved without it, 
but God was under no kind of obligation to 
save sinners. God would have been eter- 
nally just, had he doomed the whole race of 
fallen man to eternal and irretrievable death, 
but his mercy interposed a scheme of salva- 
tion. But his mercy could not extend par- 
don to sinners at the expense of his justice. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 145 

and his justice required that sin should be 
punished. Sin deserves death — not merely 
temporal, but eternal death. This is what 
the inherent ill-desert of sin merits, and what 
God's immutable justice requires shall be 
inflicted upon it. Sin is rebellion against an 
infinitely holy God, and it deserves an in- 
finite punishment, and nothing short of such 
a punishment can atone for it, and open the 
door of pardon to man. It would, therefore, 
seem that the inflexibility of God's justice, 
and the universality of human guilt, would 
shut for ever the door of hope and pardon on 
the human race, and overshadow this rebel- 
lious world with the blackness of despair, 
and the doom of eternal death. But Christ 
appears as the Light and Life of this dark 
and dead world, and brings life and immor- 
tality to light. The Lord appears in hu- 
manity, revealing a divine scheme of salva- 
tion, in which justice and mercy meet to- 
gether, and righteousness and peace kiss each 
other ; for, sin can be punished and the sinner 
pardoned. Man could not make, and God 
ought not to make the atonement; but Jesus 
13 



146 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

appears as the God-man, and is made sin for 
us, though he knew no sin, and in his body- 
on the tree he suffered the penalty that we 
ought to have suffered, and thus appeased 
the wrath of God ; and now God is in Christ 
reconciling the world unto himself. the 
depths of the wisdom and mercy of God! 
Sin is punished and the sinner is pardoned ! 
Here, in Christ crucified, is life for sin-guilty 
mortals, and nowhere else, except in this 
exalted Saviour, can pardon and life be found 
in consistency with justice. The wonder of 
grace is, that God saves the world by the 
death of his Son. 



LIFE BY FAITH IN CHRIST. 147 



CHAPTER XV. 

LIFE BY FAITH IN CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 

"Even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoso- 
ever believeth in him may not perish^ but have eternal 
life/' — John iii. 15. 

The design of the crucifixion of our blessed 
Saviour was to open a door of hope and life 
to a perishing world. As one look of the 
bodily eye upon the brazen serpent was an 
instantaneous and complete antidote to the 
poison of the real serpent's bite, and restored 
the body to the health and comfort of physi- 
cal life; so, one believing look of the soul's 
eye on the crucified Saviour, is an effectual 
remedy for the disease of sin, and will imme- 
diately restore the soul to the peace and com- 
fort of spiritual life. There is life in Jesus, 
and that life becomes ours by faith in him as 
the crucified Saviour. If we believe in him, 
we shall live with him for ever; but if we 



148 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

refuse to believe, we shall perish in eternal 
death. How can faith in Christ crucified 
save the soul? In order to make this matter 
plain, let us look at our condition by nature, 
and also see what Jesus has done for us, that 
he might bring us to the life of the Spirit in 
him. 

We are all by nature the children of 
wrath, and are exposed to the curse of God's 
law. That curse, as we have already seen, 
is death. This death is the reward which sin 
merits; and we are not only exposed to it, 
but are utterly unable to escape it in our 
own strength and by our own works. We 
are not strong enough to meet death and tri- 
umph over it. The penalty is infinite, and 
we are finite, and must be crushed under it 
if we are left to our own strength to grapple 
with it. If we are left to satisfy the de- 
mands of the law, by suffering the penalty 
of sin. Death will seize upon us and bind us 
in the adamantine chains of penal and eternal 
wrath. The penalty is infinite, and, we are 
finite, and therefore we can never, through all 
the ceaseless cycles of eternity, fill up the 



LIFE BY FAITH IN CHRIST. 149 

measure of Jehovah's unappeasable wrath. 
It is idle to hope, that we can, by any good 
works of our own hands, ever exempt our- 
selves from the curse to which our sins ex- 
pose us. No amount of future good can 
cancel a single past sin. If we have com- 
mitted but one sin, that sin makes us sinners; 
and we shall forever be sinners unless deliv- 
erance is brought to us from above. If a man 
owes but one debt, he will forever be a debtor 
until he pays that debt, or until some friend 
pays it in his stead. As well might a man 
think that by promptly and honestly paying 
all future debts, he could cancel all his old 
debts, as to suppose that, by future good 
works, he can cancel his past sins, and there- 
by deliver himself from that death, which 
they deserve. Man, therefore, is not strong 
enough to overcome death, if he should grap- 
ple with it; nor can he, by good works, satisfy 
the demands of justice, and so appease the 
wrath of Jehovah and escape the curse of his 
violated law. We are all sinners, and if left 
to ourselves, we are doomed to that eternal 
death which our guilt deserves. 
13* 



150 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

Jesus finds us in this lost and helpless situ- 
ation, and undertakes to save us by suffering 
in our stead, that death which we ought to 
suffer. He becomes our substitute under the 
law, and makes a vicarious atonement for us. 
What the law demands of us, he pays for us. 
*' He hath redeemed us from the curse of the 
law, being made a curse for us." He bore 
our sins in his own body on the tree. The 
chastisement of our sins was laid upon him. 
He was made sin for us who knew no sin. 
Yes, the veritable penalty, which we deserve 
to suffer, Jesus has suffered on our behalf. 
He has suffered the death due our sins that we 
might find life for our souls in his righteous- 
ness. He has suffered this death without 
any mitigation in his favor, and thus he has 
made a full atonement in our favor. He has 
obeyed the law perfectly, both in its penal- 
ties and precepts, by suffering and doing, as 
man's atoning substitute, all that the law 
can require of us. By this double obedi- 
ence, he has opened the way of perfect re- 
conciliation between God and the sinner, in- 
asmuch as in his passive obedience to all the 



LIFE BY FAITH IN CHRIST. 151 

penalties of the law, he has secured for us 
pardon, and by his active obedience to all 
its precepts, he has purchased for us a posi- 
tive righteousness. In Christ we can stand 
before the Father, not merely acquitted, but 
also accepted in his favor. 

Now the question arises, how can the sin- 
ner receive the benefit of Christ's obedience? 
Here faith comes, in and begins to play its 
part in our salvation. By faith we are united 
to Jesus, and live a divine life in him. When 
we become one with him in faith, our sins 
become his by imputation, and are punished 
in him, and his sufferings cancel them; and 
his righteousness becomes ours by the same 
transfer, and we are accepted in it. Thus 
we are justified and have spiritual life by 
faith in Jesus crucified. Thus, by virtue of 
a living and uniting faith in Christ crucified, 
who is the triumphant and ever-living Saviour 
and Redeemer of lost sinners, we are deliv- 
ered from spiritual death and introduced into 
a new and higher life. We perish not when 
we believe in Jesus, because our faith makes 
us one with him. ''I in them, and thou 



152 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

in me." There is a real union between 
Jesus and all that believe in him, so that, by 
virtue of this union, which is effected by living 
faith, he assumes their sins and satisfies the 
claims of justice against them, and imputes 
to them his own righteousness, and breathes- 
into them the spirit of a new life. They 
live in him and he lives in them, and one life 
pervades them both, and that life is his own 
divine life, which restores to their souls the 
lost image of God, and reinstates them in 
favor with their Creator. 

But how can faith accomplish this wonder- 
ful change, which restores the soul, from the 
death of sin, to spiritual life? Ask not how, 
JSficodemus is now silenced and listens in 
wonder and admiration to Him, who speaks as 
man never spoke, and begins to believe even 
while he cannot comprehend; and so should 
you. Faith itself is a mystery — it is more 
than mere belief, and no one can tell the 
wonders it may be instrumental in accom- 
plishing. How did a look at the brazen ser- 
pent cure the bite of the real serpent ? You 
cannot tell, but still it is a fact. It did cure 



LIFE BY FAITH IN CHRIST. 153 

it. We may not be able to tell how faith 
unites the soul to Jesus, and becomes .the in- 
strument of our justification and spiritual 
life. But it is a fact that it does so — a fact 
revealed in Scripture and confirmed by the 
experience of thousands. 

We have said faith is more than belief. 
We may believe the gospel and still not have 
that faith in Christ which saves the soul. The 
end of mere belief is a proposition express- 
ing a truth, but saving faith terminates in 
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is 
the living embodiment of all truth. The sin- 
ner hears the gospel and believes that it is 
true; and he sees Jesus lifted up as the Cru- 
cified in the preached word, and faith mount- 
ing up through the truths of the gospel, 
climbs to Jesus and rests in his person as the 
end of his hope for salvation. To rest in the 
mere intellectual belief of the truths of the 
gospel for life, is like looking at the pole on 
which the brazen serpent was elevated, with- 
out lifting the eyes high enough to see the 
serpent on its top, and hoping thereby to be 
cured. The gospel is the standard on which 



154 NICOBEMUS WITH JESUS- 

Jesus is exalted in the midst of the world for 
its salvation. We must look with the eye of 
faith to the top of this standard, and in a 
crucified Saviour exalted there, or we can 
never be saved. There Christ crucified is 
lifted up^ that whosoever believeth in him 
might not perish, but have everlasting life* 
Now, gentle reader, do you believe in this 
Saviour? If you do not, you are this moment 
a perishing sinner. The poison of sin is now 
rankling in your veins. Death — eternal 
death, is coming on apace. Would you live ? 
All you have to do is to look to Jesus by 
faith and live. One look of faith will cure 
the disease of sin and save your soul. Only 
believe in Jesus crucified, and thou shalt be 
saved. The way of salvation is now made 
so easy that, if you refuse to look and live, 
your own conscience will constrain you to 
confess that you ought to die. Here is life 
offered you on the simple and easy terms of 
faith in Jesus — a crucified Saviour full of love, 
— and if you refuse to believe, you deserve to 
perish eternally in your sins. Here is Light 
to guide you, and Life to save you. Open 



LIFE BY FAITH IN CHRIST. 155 

your eyes and look, and reach out your hand 
and receive eternal life. Believe in Jesus 
and you shall become one with him, and he 
will make you a joint heir with himself to 
eternal life and glory. 



156 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

GOD'S WOITDERFUL LOVE FOR THE WORLD. 

"For God so loved the world, that he gare his only-be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life." — John iii. 16. 

After revealing the scheme of salvation by 
faith in an incarnate and crucified Saviour, 
the Lord next directs Nicodemus's mind to 
that unutterable love of the Father, which 
gave his only-begotten Son to be crucified 
for the redemption of this rebellious world. 
Language will fall infinitely short of giving 
expression to this wonderful love of God for 
this sinful world of ours. The beloved and 
loving disciple John, who speaks so lovingly 
in his Crospel and Epistles of Divine and 
Christian love, was so overpowered on one 
occasion with the ineffable idea of love divine 
which was revolving through his mind, that 
he could give no other expression of it than 



god's wonderful love. 157 

to say, "God is love/' He did not mean to 
convey the idea that God is not just and 
holy as well as loveable and loving, but that 
love was the characterizing attribute and the 
essential principle of his divine nature, out 
of which all his other attributes are evolved, 
and the central point around which they all 
revolve in the most harmonious order. It 
was his love that sent his only-begotten Son 
to be the Light and Life of this dark and 
dead world; audit is by his love shed abroad 
in the heart that he binds the children of 
men to his throne, and constrains them to 
circulate around him in the orbits of obedi- 
ence, just as the sun binds the planets to 
him, and keeps them whirling in harmonious 
rotation in their adamantine spheres, by the 
invisible and all-powerful force of gravita- 
tion. As God is love, the love revealed in 
the passage before us, is the most glorious 
exhibition of Deity itself. 

Grod so loved the world that he gave his 

only begotten Son. This love divine for the 

rebellious world is incomprehensible in its 

height, unfathomable in its depth, and as 

14 



158 NICODEMUS WITH JESIJS. 

wide as the universe in its breadth. It is a 
love that brings the eternal Son of Go4 down 
from heaven, incarnates him in humanity, 
and nails him to the cross, that he might be 
the Saviour of a wicked world. It is a love 
that reaches from heaven to hell, and from 
pole to pole, inasmuch as it is a love that 
saves sinners from the very verge of the bot- 
tomless pit and lifts them above earth to the 
realms of endless bliss, and whose unlimited 
salvation is oflfered to the universal race of 
fallen man. We have said that in this con- 
versation there are single words which have 
compressed within them an eternity of mean- 
ing, and the little word «o, in this connection, 
implies an idea of love that eternity alone 
can grasp and develope. The love of God, 
wherewith he so loved our wicked world that 
he gave his only-begotten Son to die for its 
salvation, is as long as eternity, and as 
boundless as the infinite circles of space. By 
sounding in the unfathomable ocean, though 
we cannot touch the bottom, we may become 
impressed with a sense of the stupendous 
volume of water rolling beneath our feet, and 



god's wonderful love. 159 

though the love exhibited in the passage 
under consideration is inconceivably great, 
yet there are circumstances connected with 
it which will overwhelm us with a sense of 
its stupendous magnitude, and make us feel 
how infinite it is. 

1. It is the love of God for the world. 
Giod so loved the world. And what is that 
world which God so loved? It is the sinful, 
rebellious, and ungrateful children of Adam's 
fallen race. The world is sinful and de- 
serves his wrath, and yet God loves the 
world instead of destroying it. Justice calls 
for its utter destruction, and yet his love tri- 
umphs over justice and spares it. The world 
is in rebellion against its Creator; hates, and 
would, were it possible, dethrone the Eternal, 
and yet God loves this rebellious world. It 
is ungrateful and despises his favors, yet 
God can forgive and love it. The world even 
denies the true God, and makes to itself 
false gods of wood, stone, silver, and gold, 
and bowing before them gives them the wor- 
ship that is due to the Supreme alone, 
and yet God loves this idolatrous world. 



160 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

amazing love ! The world, so sinful, so rebel- 
lious, so ungrateful, so idolatrous, so deserv- 
ing of consuming wrath, is spared, and not 
only spared, but God loves it? This is such 
love as only a God could exercise ! Where 
there are the amiable qualities of holiness, 
sincere gratitude for favors bestowed, a holy 
adoration of the Majesty of his Divinity, and 
a cheerful obedience to his rightful authority, 
it is naturally expected that God would love ; 
but when there are none of these, but all 
their contraries, as is the case with the wicked 
world, it is the wonder of men, the amaze- 
ment of angels, and the astonishment of 
devils, that God should love this wicked 
world. 

2. God not only loves the world, but he so 
loves it that he has given his only-begotten 
Son to die for it. Love is measured by the 
sacrifices it makes in behalf of the beloved 
object. And what does God's love sacrifice 
for the w^orld? His only-begotten Son! An 
infinite sacrifice, proving an infinite love ! As 
Christ had illustrated the scheme of salva- 
tion by the type of the brazen serpent, he 



god's wonderful love. 161 

now seems to have referred to the sacrifice of 
Isaac by his father Abraham, as illustrative 
of that Divine love in which this scheme of 
life originated, which was also familiar to 
Nicodemus. If he had understood the spi- 
ritual significance of that wonderful transac- 
tion, he would have known something of the 
wonderful love of God for this wicked world, 
which brought down his eternal Son from 
the skies to be a sacrifice on the altar of 
redemption. The Saviour teaches Nicode- 
mus out of the very book which he pretends 
to understand and expound, and thus convicts 
him of culpable ignorance, and shows him 
how much he needs instruction. Isaac was 
Abraham's only son by Sarah his lawful wife, 
and though he had another son, he is called 
his only-begotten son by Paul, when he 
speaks of "his sacrifice." (Heb. xi. 17.) 
Angels are called God's sons, and the saints 
are his children ; the former are so by crea- 
tion and preservation, and the latter by crea- 
tion, preservation, and redemption; but in a 
higher and peculiar sense is Jesus the only- 
begotten Son of God. He was not created, 
14* 



162 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

but he always was begotten of the Father by 
eternal generation. We shall not pretend to 
unfold and explain the mystery of this eter- 
nal generation. There is something in the 
relations which subsist between the adorable 
persons in the Trinity, which we can never 
comprehend, which renders the Son peculiarly 
and infinitely dear to the Father. Christ is 
called the o7ily-hegotten and the dearly be- 
loved Son of the Father, and the two expres- 
sions seem to be almost synonymous in the 
Scriptures; and they indicate that the Son, 
on the account of some peculiar and myste- 
rious relation subsisting between him and 
the Father, stands so high in the Father's 
affections that no other being can be com- 
pared to his position, or be loved with 
a love at all comparable with that love 
wherewith the Father loveth the Son; and, 
when it is said that the Father so loved the 
world that he gave his only-begotten Son to 
die for it, it is equivalent to saying, that 
God's love for the world is infinite^ for it 
makes an infinite sacrifice for its redemp- 
tion. 



god's wonderful love. 163 

3. In the next place the depth of this love 
is seen in that, to which the Father gave up 
his only-begotten Son. We can never un- 
derstand the depth of humiliation and suffer- 
ing to which Jesus descended that he might 
save us. The Son descended from heaven 
and became man; and who can measure the 
infinite condescension of the incarnation of 
the eternal Son? He not only became man, 
but he became man in the lowest position of 
humanity. He was born in poverty, lived in 
poverty, and died in poverty. He had not 
a house in which to be born, nor w^ere his 
parents able to get a room in the inn where 
they were sojourning at the time of his birth. 
He was born in a stable, and while he lived 
he had not where to lay his head, and when 
he was dead, he was buried in the tomb of a 
stranger. The foxes had holes and the birds 
of the air had nests, but the Son of man had 
not where to lay his head. Not only w^as 
he a man of poverty, he was also a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was 
rejected and despised by the world, and was 
made the jest of the scorner and the song 



164 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

of the drunkard. But if we would see the 
depth of his condescension, and the infinity 
of the Father's love in giving him for the 
world's redemption, we must contemplate 
the inconceivable sufferings of his tragical 
end. Here we see the incomprehensible 
agonies of Gethsemane, when his soul was 
exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, and 
hear that prayer of awful agony which was 
wrung out from his breaking heart with 
great drops of bloody sweat — "Father, 
save me from this hour." "Father, if it 
be possible, let this cup pass from me." 
But it was not possible. It was to meet that 
very hour, and to drink that very cup, that 
he had come into the world; and the Father 
could not save him from that hour or let 
that cup pass from him, because he so loved 
the world that he had given tip his "only 
begotten Son'* to that hour of death and 
that cup of wrath^ that the world through 
him might be saved. And now let us see 
the magnitude of the Father's love in the 
infinite suff'erings of his darling Son in that 
hour of death. He is betrayed by a pre- 



god's wonderful love. 165 

tended friend, apprehended by a mob, and 
deserted in the moment of his trial by all 
his true friends. He is mocked and ridi- 
culed, scourged and spit upon, tried and 
condemned. See him, when the crown of 
thorns is pressed down on his temples until 
the blood trickles down his cheeks; see him, 
when he is scourged until the blood runs 
down his back in streams; see him, when he 
goes out bearing his cross until his exhaust- 
ed humanity sinks under the burden. But 
let us follow him to Calvary, and in the 
awful scene of his crucifixion, read the infi- 
nite love of the Father in giving his only- 
begotten Son for this wicked world. See 
him now nailed to the cross — a rugged nail 
through each hand and a rugged spike 
through his feet; see, the cross is lifted up 
and let rudely fall into its place in the 
earth, — and there hangs j^our Saviour, and 
the Saviour of the world, bleeding, groaning, 
and dying; and now see, in the midst of his 
sufferings, the Father withdraws from him, 
and hear the agonizing cry that is wrung 
from his breaking heart — ''My God, my 



166 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

God, why hast thou forsaken me." Here 
was the acme of the Saviour's sufferings and 
the crisis of the world's redemption! See, 
now, when the sun would no longer behold 
the horrible tragedy, but shuts his glories in 
from the bloody scene; when the earth could 
no longer stand still, but reels and rocks as 
if drunken with its Maker's blood; when the 
very rocks rend and shiver to pieces, and 
the graves burst open and the sleeping dead 
come forth. Here, read the infinite love of 
God for a lost and rebellious world, and let 
that unbounded love melt your heart to 
repentance and returning love. But still 
lower does the Saviour descend. — He is not 
only dead, but buried ! can you consider 
this love, and not be moved ! Shall the 
rocks rend and br^ak to pieces, and your 
hearts be harder than rocks, that they break 
not under the love of the cross? Shall the 
dead arise to life and come out of their 
graves, and you be so dead in sin that the 
love of Calvary shall not quicken your 
hearts into spiritual life? Tongue cannot 
express, nor imagination conceive, the mea- 



god's wondekful love. 167 

sure of God's love for the world, as it is 
manifested in giving up his '^only-begotten 
Son" to all this for its redemption. let 
this inexpressible love constrain you to em- 
brace this Saviour with adoring gratitude, for 
the infinite price which he has paid for your 
salvation. 

The origin of our salvation is found in 
the immediate love of the Father, which 
provides for us a Mediator between his wrath 
and our sin, but since he has provided this 
Mediator he now only loves us through him. 
Out of Christ, God is a consuming fire. 
The secret love of the Father, with which he 
loved us in himself, is higher than all other 
causes of our salvation, but that love is now 
treasured up in his only-begotten Son, and 
can only be extended to us through his 
mediation. He has made reconciliation be- 
tween us and the Father. All our hope of 
salvation, and the faith by which it is to be 
obtained, are to be centered in Christ, and 
are not to mount above Jesus to that un- 
mediated love of the Father, which gave us 
the Eternal Son to be our Saviour; there- 



168 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

fore, it is added, that whosoever believeth in 
him shall not perish, but have everlasting 
life. It would not avail to reject Jesus, and 
then to hope for salvation in the naked and 
unmediated love of God. Nicodemus could 
never be saved except by faith in the only- 
begotten Son, whom the Father's love gave 
as the price of our redemption. The Father 
is now in the Son reconciling the world unto 
himself, and we can never be saved until we 
meet with him by faith in his Son. All the 
hopes of the world are now bound up in the 
eternal, incarnated, and crucified Son, and 
the world can only be saved by faith in him. 
If Nicodemus and the Jews, and the kind 
reader of these pages, reject the Lord Jesus 
Christ, who is the only Saviour of this world, 
they thereby close the only door of hope and 
mercy upon themselves. God's love cannot 
save those who reject and despise the only 
provision for the world's redemption, which 
that love has made. Tou must be saved by 
Christ, through faith in his name, or you can 
never be saved at all, "Be it known unto 
you all," said Peter, when he had healed the 



god's wonderful love. 169 

impotent man, "and to all the people of 
Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God 
raised from the dead, even by him doth this 
man stand here before you whole. This is 
is the stone that was set at naught of you 
builders, which has become the head of the 
corner. Neither is there salvation in any 
other; for there is none other name under 
heaven given among men whereby we must 
be saved." 



15 



170 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE DESIGN OF CHRIST'S MISSIOiN" TO EARTH. 

"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn 
the world : but that the world through him might be 
saved." — Joiix iii. 17. 

After unfolding the scheme of salvation, 
which mercy has provided for the fallen race 
of Adam, and pointing to that wonderful 
love of the Father in which it originated and 
which was accomplished in the crucifixion of 
his incarnate Son, the Lord proceeds, in the 
next place, to disabuse Nicodemus's mind of 
an erroneous opinion in regard to the design of 
his mission to earth, which he entertained in 
common with the other Jews. It was a very 
prevalent notion among the Jews, that the 
Gentiles, whom they often termed the world, 
would be destroyed in the days of the Mes- 
siah. Doubtless the desire was father to the 



THE DESIGN OF CHRIST'S MISSION. 171 

opinion in this instance. They thought that 
that it Avould be the prime design of the 
coming of the Messiah to establish them as a 
nation in earthly prosperity and glory, and 
that he would utterly destroy all other na- 
tions before them, and give them universal 
dominion in this world. When Jesus stood 
before Nicodemus and claimed to be the 
promised Messiah, he corrected this false 
opinion, and taught him altogether a con- 
trary doctrine in regard to the nature and 
design of that kingdom which he had come 
to set up on earth. It was not God's design 
in sending his Son into this world, to destroy 
it at all, but to open the door of salvation to 
the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. Christ 
came not as a harbinger of death, but as the 
messenger of life. He came not to contract 
the mercies of God, but to expand them as 
wide as the world. So far from the Jews 
having their peculiar privileges increased by 
the coming of Messiah, his coming was the 
means of putting the Gentiles on an equal 
footing with themselves. Christ came in 
love, and for salvation, and the love that 



172 ' NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

brought Jesus to earth, was as broad as the 
world, for it has made salvation possible to 
the whole race of man. Christ came not to 
destroy, but to save. 

Let no one suppose that this truth is con- 
tradicted by those passages in which it is 
said that Christ ''is come to judgment." 
(John ix. 39,) and where he is called "a 
stone of offence,'' (1 Peter ii. 7,) and in which 
he is said to be ''set for the destruction of 
many (Luke ii. 34). That Jesus should be 
made death to any, may be regarded as 
altogether incidental to his coming. The 
design of his mission to earth was that he 
might be made life to all who believe in him, 
but that very design of life to the believer 
makes him to be death to all who refuse to 
believe in him. The gospel of Jesus, which 
is the power of God unto salvation to every 
one that believeth, to the Jew first and also 
to the Greek, is made the power of a double 
condemnation to all unbelievers. They are 
first condemned on the account of their sin, 
and then they are condemned because they 
reject the only remedy that love and mercy 



THE DESIGN OF CHRIST'S MISSION. 173 

have provided, or can provide, for their sal- 
vation. 

Christ came into the world not to condemn 
it, but that the world through him might be 
saved. There is an emphasis to be put upon 
the word might. Jesus does not say that the 
design of his mission is that the world must 
or shall be saved, but that it might be saved. 
He comes and pays the penalty of sin, and 
renders salvation possible to all who will be- 
lieve in him. His redemption is sufficient 
for the whole world, and if any one is lost, it 
will not be on the account of any lack of 
merit or virtue in the atonement, but just 
because they will not believe that they might 
be saved. In its sufficiency the atonement 
is as broad as the universe, but none except 
believers can enjoy its benefits. 

This salvation is freely offered to all, and 
whosoever will, may accept and be saved; 
but alas ! fallen man has no will to accept, 
and unless the Spirit of God renews his will 
at the same time, when he offers him life 
throua'h Jesus, he will die in his sin and 
stubborn unbelief. There is an universal 
15* 



174 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

offer of salvation, but all do not accept it, 
because God does not choose to renew the 
wills of all. Why he does not renew the 
wills of all men so that all would accept the 
redemption so freely offered, and be actually 
saved through the all-sufficient atonement of 
Jesus, we cannot tell. We do know, how- 
ever, that he is under no obligation to change 
the heart of any, and whoever may be lost 
can never find fault with him, because they 
voluntarily reject an offered Saviour. If he 
chooses to save some by his constraining 
grace, and to leave others to^the consequence 
of their wilful sins and rejection of Messiah, 
the saved can only praise him for his dis- 
tinguishing love, and the lost can only con- 
demn themselves, because they were never 
willing to be saved. The lost sinner can 
never say that he was willing to be saved 
through Christ, but could not, because his 
own stubborn and rebellious will is the only 
hinder an ce to his coming to Jesus. Whoso- 
ever will, may come to Jesus and find in him 
eternal life, for he was sent not to condemn 
the world, but that the world through him 



THE DESIGN OF CHRIST'S MISSION. 175 

might be saved. If you stay away and are 
lost, it is only because you will not come and' 
be saved. The world ynight be saved if it 
would. What Jesus spoke when weeping 
over impenitent Jerusalem, he speaks to you. 
''I would, but ye would not.'' ''These are 
fearful words," writes Dr. Owen, '''Ye 
would not.' Whatever may be pretended, it 
is will and stubbornness that lie at the bottom 
of this refusal." 

This inability which keeps you from Jesus, 
when you might come, if you could only get 
the consent of your will, is nothing but the 
sinfulness and depravity of your nature. 
"Remember," says Horatius Bonar, "that 
what you call your inalility^ God calls your 
guilt; and that this inability is a wilful 
thing. It was not put in you by God, for 
he made you with the full power of doing 
whatever he tells you to do. You disobey 
and disbelieve willingly. No one forces you 
to either. Your rejection of Christ is the 

FREE AND DELIBERATE CHOICE OF YOUR OWN 

WILL. That inability of yours is a fearfully 
wicked thing. It is the summing up of your 



176 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

depravity. It makes you more like the devil 
than almost anything else. Incapable of 
loving Grod, or even of believing on his Son! 
Capable of only hating and rejecting Christ! 
dreadful guilt! Unutterable wickedness 
of the human heart! 

Is it really the cannot that is keeping you 
back from Christ? No, it is the ivill not. 
You have not got the length of the cannot. 
It is the ivill not that is the real and present 
barrier. "Ye ivill not come unto me that ye 
might have life.'' ''Whosoever willj let him 
take the water of life freely." Yes, kind 
reader, Jesus came into the world not to 
condemn, not to destroy, but to open a way 
of justification to sinners, so the world might 
be saved; but the world hates, persecutes, 
and rejects him, and therefore the world is 
condemned to eternal death, on account of 
its wicked and wilful rejection of its Saviour. 
"He was in the world, and the world was 
made by him, and the world knew him not. 
He came unto his own, and his own received 
him not. But as many as received him, to 
them gave he power to become the sons of 



THE DESIGN OF CHRIST'S MISSION. 177 

God, even to them that believe on his name: 
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will 
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
God." 



178 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTBE XVIII. 

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

" He that believeth on him is not condemned/^ — John 
iii. 18. 

In a former chapter we treated of '^Life by 
faith in Christ crucified." There we spoke 
of faith as the condition which is attached to 
the covenant of grace, here we are to speak 
of it as the part that man performs in the 
scheme of redemption. There is but little 
difference, we confess, between the two 
aspects in which we view the matter of faith 
in this chapter and in that, but as the 
Saviour repeats this doctrine no less than 
three times in his conversation with Nico- 
demus, we think that we will not be doing 
wrong to give two chapters in this little book 
to its consideration. The Lord, having re- 
vealed the pari which God performs in our 
salvation, begins now to speak of the part 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 179 

man has to do in securing life to his soul. 
God plans, executes, and applies, and man 
only receives. He receives by faith, for the 
moment he believes in Jesus, he is delivered 
from the curse and condemnation of the law. 
But is not faith the gift of God? Yes, but 
at the same time it is the act of man. Man, 
in his fallen state, apart from the assistance 
of the Spirit, cannot believe, because his 
native depravity both disables and disinclines 
him from embracing Jesus. Now the Spirit, 
by enlightening his mind and renewing his 
will, gives to man the disposition and the 
ability to believe in Jesus, and then man 
accepts him as his Saviour, and trusts in him 
alone for his salvation. And as God gives 
the ability to believe and man uses it, faith 
is justly said to be the gift of God and the 
act of man. God gives the ability in the 
new birth, in which man is passive; and 
faith itself is the first vital breath of the new 
born soul. This faith takes hold on Christ, 
and thus becomes the connecting link be- 
tween the sinner and the sin-bearer. When 
we thus believe, we are delivered from con- 



180 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

demnation and introduced into the opposite 
state, which is justification. How does faith 
effect this wonderful change? As we have- 
already seen, Christ " was made sin for us, 
though he knew no sin; that we might be 
made the righteousness of God in ' him." 
Christ was treated by the law just as if he 
had been a sinner, that we might be treated 
in grace just as if we were not sinners. Now 
it is only when we get into Christ that we 
can enjoy the benefits of his righteousness, 
and we can only get into him by faith. We 
have already explained this matter in Chap- 
ter XV., to which we refer the reader for 
further illustration of the way of life by 
faith in Christ crucified. 

We will next consider the inquiry, does 
regeneration precede justification ? It seems 
to us very evident that the answer to this 
question must be given in the affirmative. 
Regeneration is the work of the Spirit in 
the heart, and precedes faith; and justifica- 
tion is the sovereign act of God concerning 
the believer, and takes place immediately 
upon the exercise of faith. Until the soul 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 181 

is regenerated by the Spirit, it is dead in 
trespasses and sins, and as faith is a vital 
act, it can only be the exercise of a living 
soul, and must, therefore, be preceded by 
regeneration. Faith is to the soul what 
breath is to the body, — both the sign and 
instrument of vitality. When the soul is 
born again of the Spirit, it then begins at 
once to believe, and its faith is the breath- 
ing and exercise of its spiritual life; then 
this faith brings the soul immediately into 
union with the Saviour, and becomes the 
instrumentality through which his righteous- 
ness is imputed to the soul; and as soon as 
the soul is thus united to Christ by faith, 
the act of justification takes place. Thus 
we are enabled to trace the connection sub- 
sisting between these two great doctrines, of 
which the Saviour principally spoke in his 
conversation with Nicodemus. Logically, 
regeneration precedes, faith follows, and jus- 
tification comes last ; but chronologically, all 
occur simultaneously, for in the work of 
regeneration one begins to believe, and in 
the act of faith he is justified. 
16 



182 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

How easy is salvation made! Only be- 
lieve, and thou shalt be saved ! This is all 
that is required, and all that can be done. 
Why then are any lost? Because proud 
man rejects a salvation, which is to be had 
simply for the receiving. The sinner may 
this moment be condemned in unbelief, and 
the very next moment, if he will only be- 
lieve, he may be justified in his faith. This 
is too easy and too simple for proud man. 
He wants to do some mighty work, and 
thereby merit the salvation of his soul. He 
is unwilling to receive life by the hand of 
faith as an unmerited gift of free grace. 
"To do some great thing called faith," says 
Horatius Bonar in his excellent little book, 
Ciod's Way of Peace^ from which we have 
already quoted, — ''to do," says he, "some 
great thing called faith, in order to win 
God's favor, the sinner has no objection; 
nay, it is just what he wants, for it gives 
him the opportunity of working for his sal- 
vation. But he rejects the idea of taking 
his stand upon a work already doney and so 
ceases to exercise his soul in order to effect 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 183 

a reconciliation, for which all that is needed 
was accomplished eighteen hundred years 
a^o on the cross of Him who 'was made sin 
for us, though he knew no sin ; that we 
might be made the righteousness of God 
in him/" 



184 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE UNBELIEVER ALEEADY CONDEMITED. 

'^He that believeth not, is condemned already, because 
lie hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten 
Son of God/' — John iii. 18. 

Condemned already! Who, and for what 
crime? The unbeliever for his unbelief. 
Why, unbelief is no positive act, — it is only 
a lack of faith ! Will God condemn a man 
simply because he hath not faith in his Son ? 
But are you certain that unbelief is no posi- 
tive crime? It seems to us to be both a 
positive and a great crime. Unbelief is not 
a merely involuntary state of mind. It im- 
plies a volition of the will, inasmuch as 
it is the rejection of the Saviour. The refusal 
to act oftentimes requires a much stronger 
effort of will than the consent to do. The 
unbeliever is already condemned, and justly 
condemned, because his unbelief is the wilful 



UNBELIEVER ALREADY CONDEMNED. 185 

rejection of the remedy for the disease of 
sin, which infinite love has provided for his 
salvation, and the deliberate choice of death 
in preference to life. 

All the race of man were made sinners by 
the fall of Adam, and have inherited from 
him an inborn depravity, which is in the 
human heart as a fountain of iniquity, send- 
ing forth streams of actual transgressions. 
Now, both for our original and actual sins^ 
we deserve condemnation. But wicked man 
has complained and murmured against that 
Divine economy, in which Adam was made 
our federal head and representative. Man 
has said that he ought not to be held re- 
sponsible for the sinfulness of his nature, as 
that came to him from Adam, nor even for 
his actual transgressions, as they are the 
unavoidable fruits of that natural corruption 
which he has involuntarily inherited from 
the first man. These complaints are un- 
just, and the reasoning, on which they are 
founded, is illogical and unsound; but still 
the unbeliever is not condemned on these 
grounds, but because, in his unbelief, he 
16* 



186 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

rejects the remedy which love has provided 
against the sinfulness of his nature and the 
sins of his practice. The unbeliever is al- 
ready condemned, not because he is walking 
in the steps of the first Adam, but because 
he refuses to follow the second Adam. He 
that believeth not, is condemned already, 
because he hath not believed in the only- 
begotten son of God. 

This unbelief is a heinous sin in itself; 
nay, it is the most inexcusable and heinous 
of all sins. It aims a blow at the character 
of God, and goes as far as mortal can go to 
undeify the Deity. To make the truth of 
this fearful assertion apparent, we must bear 
in mind that the destruction of any of God's 
essential attributes, would be the destruction 
of his Godhead. We cannot conceive of God 
except as a being of omnipotent power, of 
omniscient knowledge, of immutable justice, 
and of eternal veracity. If he were de- 
prived of either his omnipotence, or his om- 
niscience, or his justice, or his truth, he 
would then be stripped of that which is 
essential to his Godhead, and could no longer 



UNBELIEVER ALREADY CONDEMNED. 187 

be God. If a single pin or wheel be taken 
from the machinery of a watch, what is left 
is no longer a watch, because it can no longer 
perform the office of a time-piece; so if any- 
one of his attributes be taken from God, he 
would no longer be God, because he would 
not be competent to perform the office of the 
Ruler of the universe. Hence, the Scrip- 
tures say that it is impossible for God to lie, 
(Heb. vi. 18), because, for the great God to 
violate his veracity, would be for him to 
abdicate his eternal throne and cease to be 
God. Now the sinner's unbelief is an im- 
plied impeachment of Jehovah's veracity; it 
goes as far as mortal power can extend, to- 
wards undeifying the Deity. If we refuse to 
believe a fellow mortal's word, by that re- 
fusal we implicitly charge him with falsehood. 
On the same grounds, when we refuse to 
believe the gospel, which is God's word, we 
thereby charge the great God with lying. 
But the unbeliever, astounded at the malig- 
nity of the sin of unbelief, cries out, *^'you 
cannot fasten on me the enormous sin of 
charging falsehood on my Maker by your 



188 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

fine-spun argument. I never thought of 
such a thing!" Well, if the argument does 
not please you, take the conclusion in the 
words of Scripture. Open your Biblt and 
turn to 1 John v. 10, and read, ''He that 
helieveth not God, liath made Mm a liar^ be- 
cause he believeth not the record that God 
gave of his Son." It is just as certain, that 
every unbeliever gives the lie to God, as it is 
certain that God cannot lie to him. And 
there is another scripture which says, ''he 
that believeth, hath set to his seal that God 
is true." (John iii. 33.) Now, as the faith 
of the believer sets to his seal that God is 
true, so the unbelief of the unbeliever sets to 
his seal that God is false. 0, unbeliever, 
you cannot escape this condemnation, for 
both reason and scripture fasten it upon you! 
Your unbelief charges the great God with 
falsehood, and while you refuse to believe the 
gospel and to trust in Jesus, you are doing 
all you can to make God a liar. Your un- 
belief is the most enormous and malignant of 
sins, for it is a most contemptuous slander 
cast upon the name of your holy Creator^ 



UNBELIEVER ALREADY CONDEMNED. 189 

and it goes as far as mortal power can, to un- 
deify the Deity of heaven, and to make him 
like the devil of hell, who is the father of 
lies. He that believeth not is, therefore, 
most justly condemned already. 

Unbelief does not only aim a blow at the 
character of God in general, but it directs a 
particular blow at the Saviour. You cannot 
view Jesus in any aspect of his character, 
in which unbelief is not an outrage and 
grief to him. He came to this world in love 
and has suffered the full penalty of the law 
in the sinner's stead, that the world through 
him might be saved. Not to believe in him, 
is to despise his love, and to reject his mercy, 
and to do all in the unbeliever's power to 
render his sufferings of no effect. Suppose 
that all men should follow the unbeliever's 
example so that not a single soul should be- 
lieve in him, then his death would be in vain, 
as not one soul would be saved by it. Would 
it not be an awful outrage to the love of the 
crucified Saviour, if not one soul should be 
saved by his inconceivable sufferings and 
death? The unbeliever is doing all in his 



190 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

power to bring about this very result, at the 
mere thought of which the heart is appalled. 
Unbelief is a greater outrage to Jesus than 
was his crucifixion; for it is an attempt to 
render his crucifixion of no eflfect. 

Surely he that believeth not, is already, 
and most righteously, condemned, because he 
bath not believed in the only-begotten Son 
of the Father. Yes, unbeliever, you are 
already condemned! The sentence is al- 
ready passed, and there is left for you but 
one door of escape. That door is faith in 
the Lord Jesus Christ. Have faith in Jesus, 
and the moment you believe, you are changed 
from an already condemned unbeliever to an 
already justified believer. Faith can efi'ect 
this wonderful change in your moral status 
the moment it is exercised in Jesus. By 
faith ye are saved. Fear not, only believe, 
and thou shalt be saved. 



UNBELIEF NATURAL TO MAN. 191 



CHAPTER XX. 

UNBELIEF NATURAL TO MAN. 

"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into 
the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, 
because their deeds were evil." — John iii. 19. 

When the way of life is so easy that man 
has nothing to do but to believe and be 
saved — to look on an exalted Saviour and 
live, it seems wonderful that any should be 
lost; but the fact is, comparatively few are 
saved. In view of this fact the inquiry 
naturally arises and demands our attention,- 
why do so few believe? The only answer 
that can be given is, unbelief is natural to 
the heart of fallen man. The fault is not in 
God, nor in the gospel of his Son, but in 
man. The gospel is sufficient for all^ and 
all are invited, but men do not come, be- 
cause they are naturally indisposed to holy 
things. The Light of life is m the world, 



192 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

but men wilfully shut their eyes and bury 
themselves in voluntary darkness, because 
they love darkness rather than light. The 
Light shineth in darkness, and the dark- 
ness comprehendeth it not. 

Holiness and light are always associated 
together, and darkness and sin are congenial. 
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Light of this 
dark world; and coming to the light is 
believing in him, and loving darkness is 
rejecting him with unbelief. All the world 
is divided into believers and unbelievers; — 
those love the light, and these love dark- 
ness rather than the light. We are not to be 
surprised when we find that the number of 
unbelievers greatly preponderates over the 
number of believers, because men naturally 
love darkness rather than the light, and will 
not come to the light lest their evil deeds 
should be reproved. Man is a proud being, 
and does not want to admit that he is a 
sinner, and that all his conduct is depraved. 
He would rather be deluded than to know 
the truth, when the truth condemns him. 
Here is the secret of infidelity and all unbe- 



UNBELIEF NATURAL TO MAN. 193 

lief. Love of the truth never made an infi- 
del. It is self-love and hatred of the truth 
which lead men to deny and reject the truth, 
and to bury themselves in the darkness of 
error, falsehood, and infidelity. 

The unrighteous are never altogether at 
ease. When they have done all they can to 
pursuade themselves that all is right and 
well with them, they still have a secret con- 
sciousness that they have but deluded their 
souls. They are, therefore, perpetually 
afraid of the light, and will not come to it, 
lest the rottenness of the foundation of the 
house of their carnal security should be 
discovered. When they have done all they 
can to stifle the voice of conscience, still it 
will, now and then, speak out. All it needs 
to kindle it into flames, is a spark of light 
from the Sun of righteousness. Men in 
their natural state of unbelief, therefore, 
have the light of the gospel, and love the 
darkness of sin because their deeds are evil. 

The holy reflect the light of Jesus; and 
the wicked hate the holy because their pre- 
sence and godly lives bring their wicked 
17 



194 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

conduct out in bold relief, and show how 
evil their deeds are. The godly man sheds 
light around wherever he goes, and brings 
the wickedness of unbelievers into open no- 
tice ; therefore unbelievers hate them and 
shun their company. Christ is the true and 
original light, and all his disciples are the 
reflectors of his light. Christ is the Lumen 
illuminans^ and each disciple is a lumen 
illuminatum. As the man who hates the 
sun, would also hate the planets, which are 
illuminated by his light, so the wicked, who 
hate Jesus, the true and original light, also 
hate and shun his followers, because the 
light which they reflect in their holy lives 
is a perpetual condemnation and reproof of 
their wicked conduct. 

In the dark, black is not difi'erent from 
white, but when day breaks, the difi'erence 
is seen; so, where the gospel has not shed 
its light, the good may not be distinguisha- 
ble from the bad, but let the light of truth 
shine in, and the distinction will be at once 
seen. Brown may be considered white, un- 
til it is compared with snow, so the moral 



UNBELIEF NATURAL TO MAN. 195 

man may be considered perfect, until he 
is measured by the requirements of the 
gospel, and then, in the light of the gospel, 
all his deficiencies are made apparent. Men 
hate the gospel, because the gospel reveals 
their true characters. Unbelief is natural 
to sinful men, because faith is the vision of 
the truth as it is in Jesus and his gospel, in 
which they see themselves as they are, and 
they are unwilling to be convinced, or to 
admit how vile they are. 

But the unbeliever cries out, am I to be 
held responsible for my unbelief, since it is 
natural to my fallen condition ? But, why is 
it natural ? Simply, because men love dark- 
ness rather than light. Their natural pro- 
pensity to unbelief is the very core of the 
sin of their nature. They hate the light 
because they are evil. The plea is nothing 
less than this, "I am so sinful, that the sin- 
fulness of my nature is an excuse for the 
sins of my conduct.'' This plea will neither 
stand among men nor avail with God. Would 
the court acquit the murderer, who pleads 
the murderous disposition of his soul as an 



196 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

excuse for his crimes? Suppose he should 
say to the judge and jurors, that he had a 
heart naturally so malicious that he could 
not help killing his fellow-man. Would the 
jury acquit him, or the judge pardon him, on 
that account? By no means; for that very 
malice of his heart, to which he confesses, is 
the essence of his crime. Neither shall it 
be any excuse to the sinner to confess that 
he has such a natural hatred towards Jesus 
that he cannot believe in him. This very 
natural hate, in the human heart, of the 
light of the gospel, is the very essence of the 
sin of our fallen nature, and is itself an all- 
sufficient reason for the condemnation of the 
unbeliever; and he, who pleads it as an ex- 
culpation from the guilt of unbelief, will be 
condemned out of his own mouth. Shall the 
destructive serpent not be killed because its 
venom is natural? It is this very natural 
venomous quality in the serpent which ena- 
bles it to bruise the heel of man, and puts an 
undying enmity between its seed and the 
human race, and justifies man in bruising its 
head. The plea that unbelief is natural to 



UNBELIEF NATURAL TO MAN. 197 

man is no excuse nor even palliation for the 
sin of unbelief; on the contrary, it is only 
the confession to an inborn guilt which 
greatly aggravates the crime. 



17^ 



198 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

EVIL-DOERS LOVE DAEKNESS. 

" Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither 
Cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." 
— John iii. 20. 

The ideas of light and life, darkness and 
death, are associated together in the Scrip- 
tures. Light is the emblem of holiness, and- 
day a picture of heaven; and darkness is a 
symbol of sin, and night a similitude of hell. 
In this lower world of weakness, work, and 
weariness, the vicissitudes of day and night 
are necessary, and constitute one of the 
greatest blessings which the Author of all 
good has bestowed upon our frail mortality. 
The day is for labor and toil, and the night 
for repose and rest. How wise and good is 
this benevolent arrangement of Divine Provi- 
dence, and how suitable for the requirements 
of man in the circumstances in which he is 



EVIL-DOERS LOVE DARKNESS. 199 

placed! By the labor of his hands and the 
sweat of his face, he is to procure food to 
eat and raiment to wear; hence, he needs 
the light of day to see how to perform his 
work, and the warmth of the sun to give in- 
crease to his labors. But man is weak, and 
his strength is soon exhausted, and his body 
becomes wearied, and his limbs languid; 
hence, he needs the night to furnish him an 
opportunity, in its silence and stillness, to 
recuperate his exhausted physical energies 
and to prepare him for the toils of another 
day. Now, although night is a blessing to 
the human race in our present condition, yet 
it is a mark of our infirmity, and tells that 
our strength is perishing, and that we are 
passing away. 

The darkness of night is the chosen time 
for the perpetration of crimes that blush in 
the open day. For every one that doeth 
evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the 
light, lest his deeds be reproved. When 
night comes on and spreads her sable cur- 
tains over the land, and honest men have 
suspended their labors and are locked in the 



200 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

arms of balmy sleep, then it is, that the 
wicked and riotous prowl about under cover 
of darkness to perpetrate their most nefari- 
ous deeds. Hence it is, that night and dark- 
ness have become synonymous terms with 
sin and wickedness. Robbers and murder- 
ers, in the shade and solitude of night, move 
to the committal of their horrid crimes; and 
the voluptuous sons of folly, under cover of 
darkness, pursue their nocturnal pleasures in 
haunts and scenes so sinful and disgusting 
that even those who are so sunk into bru- 
tality that they can visit them in the black- 
ness of night, would blush to be found there 
in the light of day. Those who only see 
the world by day dream not of half the sin 
and misery that fill the earth. If some 
magic spell should change even a little vil- 
lage into marble at the midnight hour, the 
very attitudes of the stones would, on the 
succeeding day, reveal sins at which honest 
men would stand aghast. No honest man 
knows the amount of wickedness that is con- 
cealed under the gloom of darkness. Sup- 
pose the patience and forbearance of Grod 



EVIL-DOERS LOVE DARKNESS. 201 

should become^ exhausted with some great 
metropolis, as the city of Paris, London, or 
New York, and he should, at the midnight 
hour, change all its living inhabitants into 
marble, and leave them in the positions in 
which they had placed themselves, what sins, 
what horrid crimes, what disgusting scenes, 
would the very attitudes of these cold marble 
forms reveal! Here, would be the robber, 
with his marble hands in the very act of 
theft; and there, would be the cold form of 
the assassin petrified, with the weapons of 
death on his person, as he was creeping to 
the murder of his unsuspecting victim. 
Here, would be scenes of bacchanalian revels ; 
and there, would be families disturbed and 
horrified by the return of the intoxicated 
and brutalized husband and father. Here 
would be the marble forms of husbands and 
wives in adulterous attitudes; and there, 
there would be the petrified forms of men 
and women, who in the day were considered 
pure and chaste, in attitudes indicating sins 
so horrid and disgusting in their obscenity, 
that modesty forbids the bare mention of 



202 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

their names. The doers of evil hate the 
light and love darkness, and when the day 
breaks they come out in hypocritical dis- 
guise, or crawl to their dens and hide them- 
selves in holes until the return of nio:ht. 

Now just as the doers of evil hate the 
light of day and love the darkness of night, 
which conceals their wickedness from others, 
so they hate the light of truth, and love^the 
darkness of falsehood, which conceals their 
wickedness from themselves. They hug self- 
delusion to their hearts, and in its darkness 
attempt to persuade that their evil is good. 
If they would but open their eyes to see the 
light of truth, the truth would so condemn 
their evil deeds, that they could have no 
peace in their sins. Self-deception and self- 
delusion are the only means which can enable 
one to enjoy his sins. The truth enlightens 
the conscience and kindles its fires, and, 
therefore, evil-doers hate the truth and love 
falsehood, and will not come to the truth, lest 
their deeds should be reproved. 

Evil-doers hate the light of holiness as well 
as the light of truth, and love the darkness 



EVIL-DOEHS LOVE DARKNESS. 203 

of sin as much as they love the darkness of 
error. There is a native splendor in holi- 
ness which sinners cannot endure. They 
avoid the company of the good, because their 
radiant lives condemn their wicked conduct. 
And as they hate the disciples of Jesus, who 
bear his image and reflect the beauty of his 
holiness, they hate most intensely the Lord 
of glory, who is the true light that dispels 
the darkness of this sinful world. This is 
the reason why they will not come to him. 
They stay away from Jesus, who is the 
light, because they love sin, which is dark- 
ness. The wicked are not merely haters of 
the light because they are doers of evil, but 
they are evil-doers because they hate the 
light. This verse is not merely a repetition 
of the idea contained in the preceding one; 
it goes deeper into the human heart, and 
reveals the motive which actuates ungodly 
men. Thus the Saviour taught Nicodemus 
that he was acquainted with the secret 
springs of human actions. The idea is, that 
love of evil produces evil conduct, and evil 
conduct, in its reflex influence upon the 



204 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

heart, increases the native love of evil. Evil 
deeds are not only the proof of a natural 
depravity, but they are the very workings 
and life of it, and minister to its growth in 
the fallen and unregenerate soul. Sin is 
self-multiplying. The root of sin in the soul 
can never be exhausted by the production of 
evil in the life. The more evil it produces, 
the more it is capable of producing. Sin in 
the life is like a stone rolling down a steep 
mountain side, — the farther it goes, the more 
force and velocity it gathers. Evil-doers 
naturally hate the light of truth and holi- 
ness, and they more evil they do, the in- 
intenser this natural hatred towards the 
gospel becomes. Sin feeds upon itself, and 
is not consumed. It groTvs stronger from 
each evil deed it produces. The longer the 
sinner stays away from Christ, the more he 
will hate him, and the probability is growing 
less and less every day, that he will ever 
come to the light and seek life in Him, who 
is the light and life of this dark and dead 
world. 



DOERS OF THE TRUTH. 205 



CHAPTER XXII. 

DOERS OF THE TRUTH LOVE THE LIGHT. 

*'But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his 
deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in 
God/'— John iii. 21. 

Our Lord concludes his conversation with 
Nicodemus by impressing upon his mind the 
fact, that one must not be merely a hearer of 
the truth, but a doer of it, if he would profit 
by it. It was with this same thought that 
the Lord closed his sublime sermon on the 
mount. It is the usual application of all our 
blessed Redeemer's addresses. After making 
known the truth, he reminds his hearers that 
they must practise the truth they hear, if 
they would receive any benefit from it. But 
there is also a deeper thought than this im- 
bedded in these words, for here again, the 
Saviour reveals the secret spring and motive 
of human action. As hatred of the light is 
18 



206 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

the motive of evil-doing, so love of the truth 
is the motive of good-doing. Many fail to 
apprehend the true signification of these two 
passages, and mistakenly suppose that the 
Saviour teaches that men hate the light be- 
cause they do evil, and come to the light be- 
cause they do good. Their true meaning is, 
men do evil because they hate the light, and 
do good because they come to it. In other 
words, their doing evil is an evidence of their 
native depravity and inborn love of sin; and 
their doing the truth is a proof that their 
hearts have been regenerated and their minds 
enlightened by the Spirit. The doers of the 
truth have had their minds enlightened by 
Christ, who is the light of this dark world, 
and have thus been enabled to see the truth; 
and they have had their hearts enlivened by 
Him, who is the life of this dead world, and 
have thus been enabled to do the truth. 

The doers of the truth are those who know 
the truth and practise it in their lives. None 
but the knowers of the truth can be doers of 
it. The truth must be known before it can 
be done. A man may be very honest in his 



DOERS OF THE TRUTH. 207 

endeavors to do the truth, and still be very 
far from doing it, because he takes the false 
for the true. It is not enough that a man 
be sincere in his opinions. He must also 
have his opinions right, or he can never be a 
doer of the truth. It is a very prevalent 
mistake, that a man is not responsible for his 
belief, provided he be sincere in his convic- 
tions. There never was a mistake more fatal 
to sound morals and true religion, nor more 
contrary to the teaching of inspiration than 
this. If this were a sound doctrine in morals, 
and if Nicodemus was sincere in his convic- 
tion that Jesus was not the true Messiah, he 
could not have been blamed for rejecting 
him. But we are prepared to show, both 
from reason and Scripture, that this doctrine 
is false, and that man is responsible for what 
he believes as well as for what he says and 
does. 

"What is truth?" This is the question 
which Pilate put to Him, who is the living 
and eternal Truth. The Lord did not deign 
to answer; but we are not to suppose that 
he refused an answer because the question is 



208 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

unanswerable, but because Pilate was not 
serious and in earnest in propounding it. 
We venture the following answer, which we 
think will be found correct. Truth may be 
considered in a double aspect, as specula- 
tive and practical. Speculative truth is the 
exact correspondence of our convictions with 
the reality of things, and practical truth is 
the exact correspondence of our expressions 
with the reality of our convictions. The for- 
mer is truth in thinking, and the latter is 
truth in doing. Now unless the thoughts 
are right, the actions, when they correspond 
with wrong thoughts, no matter how sincere 
they may be, are necessarily wrong. The 
error is prevalent, and has found advocates 
in the sagacious and acute Sir James Mac- 
intosh and others of noted ability and pu- 
rity, that morality has nothing to do with 
speculative truth. This error is all the 
more dangerous in morals and religion, be- 
cause it is so ably and ingeniously suppor- 
ted; hence, the friends of a pure religion 
should be all the more diligent in searching 
out and exposing this fallacy. The argu- 



DOERS OF THE TRUTH. 209 

tnent on which it is based may be given in a 
nut-shell. It is this. Opinions are involun- 
tary, and can therefore, be neither good nor 
bad. Man has nothing to do in choosing 
what he believes; therefore, he cannot be 
held responsible for his opinions. The fal- 
lacy lies in a misunderstanding of the pro- 
vince of the will, and in overlooking the 
distinction between will and volition. 

Volition and will are not exactly the 
same thing; volition is the final determina- 
tion of the will to act, but the will itself has 
a broader field of operation, "in which,'' 
says a recent American writer, of great pene- 
tration of thought, "are embraced all the 
wishes and desires, and all the appetites and 
habits, which constitute the springs of hu- 
man action." Morality is not confined to 
the ultimate volition of the will, but is pre- 
dicable of all the motives that conspire to 
its formation, for in a certain sense all our 
active powers are voluntary. This is the 
doctrine of Bishop Butler, who says, "the 
object of the moral faculty is action, com- 
prehending under that name active or prac- 
18^ 



210 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

tical principles.'* It is also the doctrine 
of the venerable Dr. A. Alexander, who 
taught, that "men are more accountable for 
their motives than for anything else." 
Now our active principles or motives have 
much to do in the formation of our opinions. 
They determine the degree of diligence and 
sincerity with which we seek for the truth, 
and the sincerity with which we examine the 
evidences on which our opinions are based. 
It follows from this, that our opinions are in 
a certain sense under the control of the will; 
and, as the supposed involuntariness of opin- 
ions, which is the main pillar that supports 
the whole fabric of this erroneous and dan- 
gerous doctrine in morals, has been swept 
away, the superstructure itself must fall to 
the ground. 

The fallacy of this erroneous doctrine 
may be exposed by the argument known as 
the reductio ad absurdum. If man is not 
responsible for his belief, the sincere infidel, 
and even the atheist, will be saved in spite 
of their belief that there is no heaven, nor 
hell, no God to reward the good or to pun- 



DOERS OP THE TRUTH. 211 

ish the evil. If we are not accountable for 
our belief, falsehood is just as good as truth, 
darkness just as good as light, idolatry just 
as good as true religion, and heathen are 
just as good as real Christians. Let the 
heathen alone in their sincere belief of lies 
and idol- worship : it would be cruelty to 
them to break the chains of delusion that 
bind them to their false but sincere opinions. 
They are not accountable for their erroneous 
opinions, nor for the horrible systems of 
false religions which have sprung out of 
them, for they are sincere in their belief and 
practice. Any argument, that will thus put 
the truth and falsehood on an equal footing, 
and Christians and heathen on the same 
level, must be fallacious. 

We have now proved that man is respon- 
sible for his opinions, by demonstrating that 
they are in a proper sense voluntary, and by 
showing that the hypothesis that he is not, 
conducts, in its legitimate consequences, to 
the most glaring and shocking absurdity. 
We might next bring forward a long cata- 
logue of names of the highest authority in 



212 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

support of our doctrine on this point, but we 
shall mention only one ; but his ipse dixit is 
law on the subject, because he spoke by the 
inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Paul verily 
thought within himself that he ought to do 
many things contrary to the name of Jesus 
of Nazareth, so from an honest conviction of 
duty he consented to the death of Stephen, 
and went breathing out threatenings and 
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, 
and beyond measure persecuted and wasted 
the church of God. (Acts viii. 3, 4; ix. 1; 
xxvi. 9; Gal. i. 13.) In all this he was sin- 
cere, and thought that he was doing God 
service, but afterwards, when the scales of 
his spiritual blindness and prejudice had 
fallen from his eyes, and he saw the truth as 
it is in Jesus, he did not suppose that his 
conduct was blameless and justifiable on 
account of the sincerity of his opinions and 
motives; but, on the contrary, for this very 
reason he confessed himself to be the chief 
of sinners, and the "least of all the apostles, 
not meet to be called an apostle, because he 
had persecuted the church of God. (1 Cor. 



DOERS OF THE TRUTH. 213 

XV. 9.) Man is, therefore, responsible for 
his belief as well as for his actions, and the 
doers of the truth are those who both know 
and practise the truth. Many know their 
duty and do it not; and some there are who 
do wrong while they are trying to do right, 
from sincere but erroneous convictions of 
what duty is. The real doers of the truth 
are those who have come to Jesus, and had 
their minds enlightened by him to know the 
true from the false, and have received from 
him regenerating grace to enable them to 
pursue the right and to shun the evil. Those 
who come to the true Light of this dark 
world, are made to know the truth as it is in 
Him, and the truth when known, makes them 
free from error and wrong-doing. 

Those who are the real doers of the truth, 
have it manifested that their works are 
wrought in God. Works wrought in God, 
are such as are done through his grace and 
in compliance with his will. Such are all 
the good works of believers. God works in 
them both to will and to do of his good 
pleasure. And as all the good works of 



214 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

believers are thus the product of God's Spirit 
and grace working in them, the works them- 
selves are said to be wrought in God. The 
doers of the truth love the light, and come to 
it, that they may know the true character of 
their works; for, when it is manifest that 
their works are wrought in God, they find an 
unspeakable peace and comfort in the assur- 
ance, which that fact gives them, that they 
are God's friends, and that God is reconciled 
to them through his Son. 

You have now, my dear reader, listened to 
the conversation of your Saviour with Nico- 
demus, and if you would profit by it, you 
must be more than a mere hearer of the 
truth. You must be a doer of it. In this 
interview he has taught you truth of eternal 
importance to you, because it pertains to the 
salvation of your immortal soul. You must 
not only understand and believe this truth, 
you must also do it, or you cannot be saved 
by it. You must be born again by the power 
of the Spirit and be justified by faith in 
Christ, or you can never enter the kingdom 
of God. 



IMPRESSION MADE ON NIOODEMUS. 215 



CHAPTBE XXIII. 

THE IMPEESSION MADE ON NICODEMUS. 

'^ There came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to 
Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of mvrrh and 
aloes, about a hundred pounds weight." — John xix. 39. 

We suppose that most of the readers of this 
remarkable conversation are naturally curious 
to know what immediate effect it had on 
Nicodemus's mind, and what influence it 
exerted over his future conduct. He cer- 
tainly enjoyed, in this interview, a high and 
responsible privilege, and if he did not be- 
come a doer of the truth, after hearing it 
from the lips of the Divine Teacher, there 
will be no excuse found for him in the day 
of judgment. Most believers only see the 
light of truth as it is reflected from some 
secondary teacher, but Nicodemus approached 
into the very presence of the Sun of righte- 
ousness and beheld his immediate glory. 



216 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

He spoke face to face with the Lord of glory, 
and received from his own lips the funda- 
mental principles of the gospel. But did he, 
with all his unusual advantages, become a 
believer? The Evangelist closes his account 
of this interview without informing us of its 
immediate effect upon Nicodemus's heart. 
We all, naturally enough, feel a great desire 
to know something more of Nicodemus than 
what is given in this narrative, but we are 
not disposed to complain of the abrupt 
manner in which it closes, because the 
abruptness of the conclusion speaks for the 
simplicity and historic truthfulness of the 
inspired narrator. If the Evangelist had not 
been giving a simple narration of facts, as 
they actually occurred, he most probably 
would have attempted in the close to illus- 
trate the wonderful power of the words of 
his hero, by pretending that they made an 
astounding impression on Nicodemus's mind 
and exerted a miraculous influence over his 
future life. But we have nothing of this 
sort. There are, however, a few facts in- 
cidentally mentioned in the conversation 



IMPRESSION MADE ON NICODEMUS. 217 

itself and in other parts of John's Gospel, 
from which we may infer pretty conclusively 
what impression the words of the Lord made 
on this ruler in Israel. 

We have seen good reasons for supposing 
that Nicodemus came to the Saviour as the 
representative and commissoner of the Phari- 
saic rulers of the Sanhedrim. There is no 
reason to suppose that, when he began to 
speak with the Lord, he was any better in- 
formed of the character, or that he had any 
more kindly feelings towards the person of 
Jesus, than those who sent him. He came 
confessing that he and the other rulers were 
convinced, from the mighty miracles he did, 
that Jesus was a teacher come from God. 
They were prepared to receive him as a 
prophet, but not as the Messiah. When 
Jesus told him that he was not merely a 
prophet, but the prophet of prophets — the 
Divine Teacher of the human race, and more 
than all this, that he was the Divine Life- 
Restorer, and that a ihan must be born again 
before he could become a disciple, Nicode- 
mus rejected his claims, and turned his doc- 
19 



218 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

trine into ridicule. This shows the darkness 
of his mind when the conversation began. 
But as the Saviour proceeded by reiterating 
his doctrine, and illustrating it by a common 
example of nature, it seems that his mind 
became partially enlightened, for his ridicule 
disappears and only his unbelief remains. 
At this point Nicodemus asks, how can these 
things be? Up to this point, Christ had 
only spoken of the earthly side of the new 
birth, but he begins now to speak of its 
heavenly side, and to reply to Nicodemus's 
unbelief. The heavenly things occupy the 
conversation to its close, when it seems that 
Nicodemus departed in silence. It appears 
that he left the Lord in a state of mind halt- 
ing between two opinions. He was not fully 
prepared to admit the claims of Jesus, and to 
give up all and to follow him, nor could he 
make up his mind to wholly, reject him and 
his claims. It seems that the interview put 
him into an inquiring state of mind. It 
opened his mind to conviction, and put him 
upon observing the future course of the Lord. 
We do not suppose that he at once became 



IMPRESSION MADE ON NICODEMUS. 219 

his disciple, and secretly served him as did 
Joseph of Arimathea, but that the truth 
made gradual progress in his mind, and that 
he was fully convinced by the scenes of the 
crucifixion, that Jesus was the Christ, the 
Son of God — the Light and Life of this dark 
and dead world, and that he then fully 
yielded to the accumulative force of the 
proofs of his Messiahship, and became his 
disciple in good earnest, and united with 
Joseph of Arimathea in burying the body of 
the Lbrd. This conversation created in his 
mind an opinion favorable to Christ's claims, 
and induced him to study most carefully all 
the Scriptures relative to the Messiah, and 
to ponder well all the succeeding events of the 
Saviour's life, and they gradually confirmed 
his opinion that he was the Messiah; and, at 
last, when he saw Jesus, in accordance with 
the prediction which he had made in the 
private interview which he had with him, 
lifted up in his crucifixion as was the brazen 
serpent in the wilderness, all the circum- 
stances of his life and death culminated in 
full conviction that Jesus could be no other 



220 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

than the Son of God and the promised Mes- 
siah. 

Nicodemus is mentioned in only two other 
places in John's Gospel, but in both places he 
is spoken of in circumstances and connec- 
tions that justify the opinion which we have 
ventured to express, as to the impression this 
conversation made on his mind. In chapter 
vii. 50, he is found defending Jesus in the 
Sanhedrim, and contending that he should 
not be condemned without giving him a fair 
trial and an opportunity of making his own 
defence. This shows that he, at that time, 
entertained friendly feelings towards the 
Lord, although he had not yet become his 
disciple. He is mentioned again in chapter 
xix. 39, as joining with Joseph of Arimathea 
in burying the Lord. He is represented 
here as bringing a hundred pounds weight 
of a mixture of myrrh and aloes. This 
shows that, when he did become Christ's dis- 
ciple, he was ready to make sacrifices in his 
cause, and to serve him with a liberal hand. 
This mixture was very costly and the amount 
exceedingly abundant. About the half of a 



IMPRESSION MADE ON NICODEMUS. 221 

pound was the quantity commonly used in 
ordinary funerals. The great quantity used 
on this occasion shows the peculiar and ex- 
alted respect of Nicodemus for the deceased 
Saviour. Great quantities of this mixture 
were used only in the embalming of kings, 
and others from exalted stations of life. An 
immense amount was used at the funeral of 
Aristobulus, and it is said that five hundred 
servants bearing aromatics attended the fune- 
ral of Herod. Though Christ died the death 
of a slave, and was crucified as a malefactor 
on the Roman cross, yet, at the hands of 
Nicodemus, who came to him by night in the 
beginning of his public ministry, and of Jo- 
seph of Arimathea, who was secretly his dis- 
ciple, he had the burial of a king. He was 
numbered among the transgressors, and yet 
was buried with the rich ; and this remarka- 
ble fulfilment of prophecy, doubtlessly, con- 
firmed the faith of Nicodemus and Joseph, 
when they afterwards came to reflect how 
they had altogether unconsciously assisted in 
its fulfilment. It was the love of the dying 
Saviour that drew out into full ardor and 
19* 



222 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

open confession their love. The power of his 
death overcame the timidity of Joseph of 
Arimathea, and wrought full conviction in 
Nicodemus's mind. It made the timid disci- 
ple bold, and constrained the doubting and 
hesitating inquirer to yield full and candid 
consent, and to embrace with faith and love 
the Lord of glory, whom he respected and 
defended while living, and now received as 
his Saviour when dead, and after his resur- 
rection, as we hope, followed through good 
and evil report as a faithful and obedient dis- 
ciple even unto the day of his death ; and we 
trust that he is now in the courts of the 
upper kingdom, believingly listening to the 
Saviour's sublimer discourses concerning the 
heavenly things. 



THE CONCLUSION. 223 



CHAPTER XXIV, 

THE CONCLUSION, 

^' The true Light that li^hteth every man that cometli 
into the world." — John i. 9. 

We find, upon examination, that this conver- 
sation was not a rambling talk on discon- 
nected subjects, for the lofty topics here dis- 
cussed follow each other in natural order and 
logical sequence. The first verse is introduc- 
tory, and tells who Nicodemus was, that 
sought this private interview with the Sa- 
viour; the second verse informs us what 
opinion he had of the Saviour when he first 
came to him. He regarded him as a teacher 
come from God. We have seen that this 
opinion was deficient — it is correct as far as 
it goes, but it falls short of the whole truth. 
The third verse supplies to the thought of 
the second what is lacking to complete the 



224 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

idea of the Saviour's character, and presents 
him to our consideration as the Divine Life- 
Restorer, as well as the Divine Teacher of 
the human race, and teaches that it is neces- 
sary for a man to be born again in order to 
become Jesus' disciple, and before he can 
enter his kingdom. The fourth verse shows 
how Nicodemus at jBrst received this doctrine 
with unbelief and ridicule. From the fifth 
to the ninth verse the Lord reiterates the 
doctrine of the new birth, and unfolds and 
explains its nature and necessity, and illus- 
trates this spiritual mystery by the physical 
mystery of the blowing wind. The ninth 
verse shows that Nicodemus at this point 
ceased to ridicule, but that he was not yet 
prepared to believe, because he could not un- 
derstand how these things could be. From 
the tenth to the thirteenth verse the Lord 
reproves the Jewish ruler and teacher of the 
law for his ignorance, and refutes his un- 
belief. 

Here ends the first part of the conversa- 
tion, in which Jesus has spoken only of 
earthly things, that is of the terrestrial side 



THE CONCLUSION. 225 

of regeneration; from this to the close of 
the interview he speaks of heavenly things, 
that is, the celestial side of the new birth. 
In the heavenly things he reveals the divine 
scheme of redemption, as it was passed in 
the council of eternity, executed in time, and 
may now be embraced by man. In this part 
he makes known in logical order the myste- 
ries of the incarnation, of the crucifixion, and 
of life by faith in a crucified Saviour. This 
brings the conversation down to the eigh- 
teenth verse, and in the eighteenth and 
nineteenth verses he shows what man is to 
do in order to enjoy the benefits of this 
Divine scheme of salvation, and what will be 
the consequence to him if he refuses to do 
his part. If he only believes, he is pardoned 
and shall be saved, but if he refuses to be- 
lieve, he is already condemned, and shall be 
lost. The twentieth and twenty-first verses 
are the application of the conversation, and 
indicate the motives which actuate the godly 
and ungodly in their conduct towards the 
Saviour, who is the Life and Light of this 
dark and dead world. The former come to 



226 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

the Light, and receive life, and live for ever; 
the latter love darkness rather than light, 
and so they refuse to come to Jesus, and 
perish in darkness and eternal death. 

Now my dear reader, you have listened to 
this conversation of your Saviour with a sin- 
ner like yourself, and what impression does 
it make upon your mind ? Have you recog- 
nized in it the Saviour as the Light and 
Life of this dark and dead world ? Are you 
convinced of the necessity of the new birth ? 
Do you believe the words of Him, who speaks 
as never man spake? Have you experien- 
ced that change of nature without which you 
can never enjoy communion with God on 
earth, or be admitted to his presence in hea- 
ven? Do you believe in the Saviour, who 
was exalted on the cross for your salvation ? 
Have you accepted this Saviour as your 
Saviour, or are you prepared to accept him 
now? As this conversation left Nicodemus 
without any excuse for his unbelief, so if you 
turn from it without faith in the Saviour, it 
will leave you without any excuse or cloak 
for your sins. You have now heard the 



THE CONCLUSION. 227 

truth, and you must be henceforth a doer of 
it, if you would profit by it. You must be 
born again. The Saviour has said it, and 
you know that he has said it; and now, if 
you fail to seek the Spirit that he may 
regenerate your heart, you will have no 
excuse to place against your just condemna- 
tion in the last day. You now know what 
you have to do to secure life eternal for 
your immortal soul, and, if that soul is lost, 
you will have none to blame but yourself. 
Only believe, and thou shalt have life eter- 
nal. Your soul is in jeopardy every moment 
you refuse to believe ; nay, it is already con- 
demned if you are now an unbeliever. You 
have but one soul, there is but one way in 
which that soul can be saved, and there is 
but one opportunity to save that one soul in 
the one way that is now open before you. 
The light of the gospel now shines around 
you, and if you lose your soul, it will be 
simply because you love darkness rather 
than light. 

There is but one way of life — Faith in the 
Lord Jesus Christ saves the soul. If you 



228 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

refuse to believe, you must be lost. If there 
was any other possible way of life you might 
reject Jesus, and yet live; but as he is the 
only Saviour, if you reject him, you must die 
in eternal death. You have but one oppor- 
tunity to save your soul. In this life you 
must either accept or reject the Saviour, and 
so decide the destiny of your soul. If you 
were going to be put on probation after this 
life, and have another opportunity of believ- 
ing to salvation afforded you, you might 
spend this present life in sin and unbelief, 
and yet be saved. But if you are not born 
again in this life, there will be no help nor 
hope for you in the life which is to come; 
and this life, which is your only opportunity 
to save your soul, is uncertain. Yesterday 
is past, and to-morrow may never come to 
you. You are only certain of the present 
moment in which you now live. Delay in 
this matter is always dangerous, and it may 
be fatal. Now, what is more, you have but 
one soul, which you are to save or to lose in 
this one life, and in the one way of faith in a 
crucified Saviour. If you had two souls, you 



THE CONCLUSION. 229 

might experiment with one of them, and if 
that one should be lost^ you would have an- 
other one to be saved. But there is no room 
for experiment and risk here, as you have 
but one soul, and that one soul is in jeopardy 
every moment of eternal death, unless you 
have been born again, and are this day re- 
joicing in the consciousness that your sins 
are pardoned and your soul justified through 
the merits of a crucified Redeemer. If you 
lose that soul, you lose your all, and you lose 
it forever. The Saviour told Nicodemus, 
and you have heard his words, that all you 
have to do is to believe in him. Believe in 
Jesus, and you immediately become a Chris- 
tian. Christian is the highest name known 
on earth. It confers the most exalted honor^ 
and conducts to the most glorious reward* 
To be a Christian, is to be a child of God^ and 
joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ to all 
the honor, glory, and felicity of heaven, 

'* Who would not be a Christian ? I have seen 
Men shrinking from the term, as if it brought 
A charge against them ! Yet the honored name 

Is full of gentlest meaning. Odors rise, 

20 



230 NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. 

And beauty floats around it; from its eye I 

Great tears of heavenly sym]3athy descend; 

And mercy, soft as Hermon's fragrant dew, 

Springs in its heart, and from its lips distil. 

Hark! 'tis the loftiest name the language bears, j 

And all the languages in all the worlds Ij 

Have none sublimer! It relates to Christ, 

And breathes of God and holiness; suggests 

The virtues of humanity, adorn 'd 

By the rich graces of the Holy Ghost, 

To fit them for the paradise on high, 

Where angels dwell, and perfect manhood shines 

In the clear lustre of redeeming love, 

For ever and for ever, and implies 

A son and heir of the Eternal God." 



THE END. 



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